When this happens, you get "low memory" messages, or your system may even crash, causing you to lose everything that hasn't been saved up until that point.

Though this article isn't a lesson in memory, let me explain in a very simplistic way what RAM (Random Access Memory) is, and why it's so important to a computer system. Every time you turn on your computer, launch a program, or open a file, program or data is loaded into RAM. If your computer system has a lot of RAM, you can open more files or programs at once and load bigger files or programs onto your system.

So, RAM is temporary memory that is required to run your software programs. When you click "save" button on your system to save a piece of work, you're now using your long-term storage, or hard drive's, memory, which is a totally different memory. Information saved to your hard drive is available to you when you turn off your machine and start it again. It's "permanent." RAM, on other hand, is short-term memory, and when your computer shuts down, you lose everything in RAM.

The other calls that I get are of variety - "My computer doesn't work" - "Excel is acting funny" - "My computer's locked up, what do I do?"

Well, I can't authorize you to go home or to mall, so what about trying "the three finger salute (Control, Alt, Delete) or rebooting your computer"?

I have no idea why everyone asks me how to fix his or her computer problems. I can answer easy questions like- "How do you fix Charbroiled Oysters?" or "Where's a good place to eat?"

To prove my point - At home I have a 20Gig hard drive with a Pentium III processor, 500Mhz and I'm lucky enough to have a cable modem. I got fat, dumb and happy thinking I would have resources to run any program.

I got a wake up call when designing our web site and my resources dropped to 30%. Some people in a similar situation would reformat their hard drive. But I would not - except as a last resort - because it is a real pain, time consuming and I'm too lazy.

Doing computer cleanup is not foremost in anybody's mind. What's old saying - If it ain't broke, don't fix it? This is similar to "Backups" -

Everybody tells you to backup your data and tendency is to wait till tomorrow. You become a convert real fast when you lose everything you've spent hours, days or weeks entering and you have to start from scratch.

If you suspect your system resources are low, you may want to try these options that I always suggest to those with similar problems. --- These are a layman's instruction. If you need help from a professional - call a professional, I'm not one to listen to.

The first thing to do is CHILL OUT!

Step1: Have a glass of wine, beer, soft drink or whatever - For Windows 95/98 - You may want to check your reading with a program running such as MS Access (or any program that eats your resources).

Try again with nothing but windows running to see difference - go into "Control Panel", click "System", click "Performance" (or you can right click "My Computer" and select "Preferences").

If "System Resources" is above 50% with MS Access running, you should be in relatively good shape. With nothing running you should be around 88%. Don't fall for that garbage that says, "You are configured for optimum performance". If your resources are down - something ain't right!

While you're looking at resources click "Virtual Memory" and make sure "Let Windows manage…" is checked. Unless you know what you're doing, don't try to change settings (I don't). If your resources are running @ 90 %, you don't need to read any further.

Step2: Have another glass of wine, beer or whatever - Look in bottom right corner of your screen. You should see some icons like Volume, Virus protection, Time, etc., etc, etc, etc.

A lot of that is a lot of needless junk that is put in your startup group needlessly by programs. Stuff like Printer status, Real Player, Scanner status, AOL, IOU, DEQ, AEIOU or whatever - those use resources needlessly.