5) Shared Memory - As a cost cutting measure, some systems are designed for video card to share memory with system itself and not to have its own dedicated memory. Therefore a system with 64 MB RAM advertised with a 4 MB card has only 60 MB of free RAM after video card’s requirements. On budget systems, this is common but you should be told about it. You could end up buying a computer that has 64 MB of RAM and then find that you only really have 58 MB -- and you can't run a program that needs 64MB.

6) What You See Isn’t What You Get - As components that go into a machine are numerous and constantly changing, you may find that machine you receive is rarely exact machine you ordered. These differences are caused by frequent non-availability of various components. Additionally, some big name mail order firms’ sales reps get into habit of "forgetting" what price they gave you for equipment you asked for – and, as a result, you get sent a system that’s missing parts that you wanted.

Now, before you go running to first “reputable” computer store thinking it’s your safest bet, you have to know that those big players also have a slew of deceptive practices up their sleeves. Furthermore, they go to great lengths to hire professional salespeople. Quite frankly, unless you’re one of small percentage of people who possess computer-buying savvy, you are putty in hands of trained computer salespeople. They know exactly how to manipulate you, entice you, allay your fears and, most importantly, close deal. How about you – are you a trained computer buyer?

Do you know for instance….

…what day of week it’s best to buy a computer to get best prices?

…the closely-guarded tactic to saving at least $500 on your next computer purchase?

…what advertised feature you should never pay a single dime for when buying a computer?

…when it’s OK to buy "clones" or generic brands?

…why you should beware of advertisements that scream “Free Printer”, “Free Scanner” and “Free Software”?

My friend, Mark Joyner, and I reveal those secrets for free in another article located here:

http://www.roibot.com k_cbsr.cgi?cbsrfreecontent

I don’t want you thinking there are no happy endings in world of computer buying. It's absolutely mind-blowing what astronomical margins some firms make on PCs, and how incredibly simple it is for buyers to get huge discounts on those prices - if they know how.

Epilogue: I have a recent success story of my own to tell. I just bought myself a new laptop -- a beautiful IBM Thinkpad T20 with all bells and whistles at about $1400 below listed price!

All I can say is, beating computer bullies at their own game is best revenge.

Odds are that software will walk same road in years to come. System and standard software will continue to be programmed conventionally by professional software developers. Application software, however, will more and more be "plugged together" by users (or their applier organizations) themselves.

Building software in an Application Framework like DLG (also called: 'component based software development') as a 3-step job:

1.Build a framework by combining DLG elements supporting features you designed for target application.

2.Make full use of DLG's flexibility to override DLG defaults. You can do it by coding options in form of keyword parameters..

3.Only application-specific operations are left to be programmed in conventional way. Additionally, there might be details you want to be handled in a more sophisticated way than by DLG options. If so, you will need to program a number of callback procedures. Visit http://www.1st-components.com: There you can download many free sample programs (+ their source code) to see that this can be done in a few code lines only, even for rather complex UIF-elements.