ClearType, a Microsoft-branded font innovation, smooths edges of text by taking advantage of fine control over red, green and blue vertical stripes in each pixel of a flat-screen monitor (such as on a laptop or color handheld computer); regular CRT monitors will supposedly also see some improvement. Those of us without Windows XP will have to settle for the fakey-fake anti-aliased demo pictures and extreme close-ups. I notice, however, that the close-up demo images on Microsoft's pages cause my 5-year-old CRT monitor to do weird stuff, as if Windows 2000 or IE 6 is trying to special things with these web pages (and perhaps failing). The promise of a feature like this is almost enough to get me to upgrade to WinXP. Almost.