" Of course that answer is extremely subjective because "the best" to one person is certainly different to another. Our definition of "the best" is the fastest and the biggest, but even that leaves the computer newbie confused. Here's a quick rundown of what the computer novice should do and why. A simple Google or Yahoo search for a particular type of program will yield all sorts of results that point you toward items that you can try before you buy. Be aware however, that because shareware is not commercial software, you may not experience a full program the way you would if you bought the software out of a box. Most (if not all) manufacturer's reserve a portion of cyberspace and dedicate it to support the products that they build. Microsoft's help desk is good example. 3. Fan sites. Fan sites probably isn't a good name for this resource, but you can find websites that are dedicated toward supporting the users of a particular software program or piece of hardware. Instead, this generation of hackers are grown individuals who are more than likely earning a living by stealing the identities of innocent, law abiding individuals and then selling those identities to others who want to slip by the system. And the only protection against these seedy people is prevention. This will decrease the time it takes for your computer to send it elsewhere, and it will also decrease the time it takes for someone else to download it. To create your own .zip or .sit file, you can select a single file or a group of files from within Explorer, and right-click the selection. 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. 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.