Staring at a monitor all day, or even part of the day, can be very hard on the eyes.

If you're using a CRT display, one of the easiest things you can do to relieve eye-strain is to up your monitor's refresh rate. By default, your monitor is strobing at you 60 times a second. Pushing that up over 70 times a second will ease the strain on your eyes enormously, even if you can't "see" the flicker. To change this in Windows XP, just do the following:

• Right-click on the desktop and select properties
• Click the "Settings" tab, and then the "Advanced" button
• Click the "Monitor" tab
• Select any value over 70 from the "Screen Refresh Rate" drop down
• Click OK

On LCD screens, type can look very jagged. Even on CRT displays, it can be not as smooth as you'd expect. The way to fix this is to turn on ClearType support and fine-tune it for your display. This is ESPECIALLY important on LCD displays, but it improves the appearance of fonts on CRT displays as well. Try this, you'll be amazed at the difference:

Click on this link: Microsoft ClearType Tuner

When prompted, download and install the ActiveX Control.

Then just follow the wizard-like prompts. It's that easy. Your eyes will thank you!