ReadPal goes a a step further. It is a free for personal use desktop application for the Windows operating system that integrates with Internet Explorer, most text processing programs but can also be used to load text files directly. The program has two main features.

The first provides text formatting and readability options to make the text more accessible and readable to the user. The program supports multiple modes in which the text can be viewed from column over banner to full screen. The initial layout displays the text on a black background with the possibility to change the color scheme in the program’s options.

Some of the view modes will go through all the text continuously so that the user can concentrate on reading the text and not on text controls to scroll the text manually. This is for instance available in the sentence and banner modes. The speed can be changed with the up and down arrow keys or by clicking on the small icon in the lower left corner.

The speed reading program displays a words per minute count in the status bar that can be used as an indicator of the reading speed. It is furthermore possible to change the number of words on the screen from automatic to a user defined value.

Those features alone can be very helpful in increasing the accessibility of textual information in Windows. ReadPal offers an AutoTrim feature which can further increase the reading speed of the user by removing fill words from the text. The default value is a reduction by 20% which can be increased or decreased in the speed reading program’s options.

ReadPal integrates with Internet Explorer and text applications like Word or Notepad in Windows. It displays a ReadPal button in the status bar that when clicked opens the text in the ReadPal software. It should also be noted that the software only supports English texts for now.

The speed reading software ReadPal can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is free for personal use. A business license costs $39.

This tips might also be useful to those users who use an old computer with Windows Vista. My Vista installation is using about 430 megabytes of Ram in default state with only one instance of Internet Explorer 7 running as well. The following paragraphs contain a list of changes that I made and their effect on the system.

• Disabling the Sidebar
• Changing the Design to Windows Classic
• Changing the Background image to one color
• Disabling the Windows Firewall and Bitdefender

Those changes alone dropped the ram usage by 60 megabytes to 370 with one Internet Explorer window open. There are many settings that can still be tweaked to gain even more performance, for instance removing unnecessary services and indexing. I will take a look at those in the coming days.

The question of course remains why you would like to change to Vista if you disable everything “new” that Vista offers. I personally think that it introduces lots of gimmicks that freeware on XP offered for years. And if it is security that you want you should take a look at Linux instead.

The tips are all great ones that I myself use on my windows xp system. Tips include general ones that you´ve read on many sites like disabling indexing service but also advanced ones that beginners should not know about. Those include disabling performance counters, running Bootvis for faster boot times and removing fonts that the user and windows are not using.

He could have added more detail to some of the tips but a Google search or a comment will help you receive the answer to your question(s).

Update: Here is a list of tips that you find on the site.

• 1. Disable Indexing Services
• 2. Optimise Display Settings
• 3. Speedup Folder Browsing
• 4. Disable Performance Counters
• 5. Improve Memory Usage
• 6. Optimise your internet connection
• 7. Optimise Your Pagefile
• 9. Remove the Desktop Picture
• 10. Remove Fonts for Speed

Windows XP users may also be interested in additional tips that have been posted on Connected Internet. You can access the post here: 10 Intermediate Ways To Speed Up Windows and More Ways to Speed Up Windows XP.

Here is the list of tips:

• 1. Disable Unnecessary Services
• 2. Turn Off System Restore
• 3. Defragment Your Pagefile
• 4. Speedup Folder Access – Disable Last Access Update
• 5.Disable System Sounds
• 6. Improve Boot Times
• 7. Improve Swapfile Performance
• 8. Make Your Menus Load Faster
• 9. Make Programs Load Faster
• 10. Improve XP Shutdown Speed

Please note that most of the tips will only work if you are using the Windows XP operating system. If you are using a different OS, they may not work at all as Microosft has made significant changes to the core of the operating system.