Again, depending on how you installed Winzip or StuffIt, you can click the "Add to Zip" or "Add to Sit" option and have these programs automatically archive the file(s) into one. Some files compress better than others and in some instances, you may not notice that much of a difference. As a result, you can find tons of games, databases, GPA systems, weather reporting programs, and even small encyclopedias on these things - each accessible not at the click of a mouse - but at a few presses of a free thumb. Of course a mini keyboard is available for the text-messaging fan or for the poor fellow who can't seem to get away from the office. A program that needs 14MB of memory will generate errors on a computer that only has 4MB of memory if it runs at all. The same goes for disk space, monitor color depth and resolution. In these situations, problems occur the moment that a piece of software attempts to access the things (hardware, memory, space, resolution, etc. Take a moment to try and think of a place a business where you didn't see a computer in use. From the small local corner store to the largest hospital, computers are in every gas station, grocery store, bank, restaurant, beauty shop, and doctor's office around. From a consumer's point of view - you may not think that's much to worry about. If you wanted these programs to start minimized, you could type the following into a batch file instead: START http://www.yahoo.com /m START "c:/program files/microsoft office/office/winword.exe" /m START "c:/windows/calc.exe" /m This will run all three programs as before, however the "/m" parameter will minimize them so that they don't clutter up the desktop. But what most new computer users don't realize, is that without an operating system, that computer would be a simple shell of possibilities. A powered computer lacking an operating system wouldn't display anything more than a bunch of confusing text messages that describe the computer's boot process.