Disk space, like memory, has also become relatively inexpensive. This one is easy: buy as large a hard drive as you can afford. Most PC's today are being equipped with drives in the 40 to 80 GB range (that's gigabytes or billions of bytes). To lend some perspective to this, it is not unusual to install some office software suites and have them use more than half a GB (500+ MBs) of disk space and that's just some of the several types of software you'll be adding to the disk drive (for example, there's the operating system to consider). Also, look for disk drives which spin at 7,200 RPM vs. 5,400 RPM this is a speed difference you, the human, really will notice.

The easy way to remember the difference between computer "memory" and disk "memory" is that computer memory, or RAM, is like the shopping list you have in your head when you go to the store. You can mentally run through the list, item by item, make your purchase and then forget the list. Disk memory, more commonly called disk storage, is more like the filing cabinet where you keep folders of information you'll want to review again and again.

The difference to the CPU, and ultimately to you the user, is the time it takes to access the data. Faster is better in the world of computers. In the little world of the CPU, the relative difference in time to access needed data is the difference between you knowing you have a loaf of bread on your mental shopping list and having to get up and open a drawer in your filing cabinet and finding the shopping list on a piece of paper kept in a folder. Accessing RAM memory is very much faster than going out to the disk to access memory. The more RAM your PC has the more it can keep on its mental shopping list and the faster it can serve up those items to you.

For future consideration, it is not difficult to add another disk drive to your PC if your initial drive fills up. This is usually easier, cheaper, and less painful than pulling out the old and replacing it with a newer, larger drive and having to copy all the software to the new drive.

The other major component in your computer is your modem. Almost all new PCs come equipped with a modem. Make sure that your modem is a V.90 capable of doing 56K. The V.90 is the name of the standard that all new modems adhere to while the 56K is the theoretical maximum speed. In the real world, however, your best speed will only be about 50K because of certain technical limitations with your phone lines.

Internal or external modems are functionally the same. The external is usually a little more expensive because you have to pay for the case, power supply, and a serial cable. The internal variety doesn't require any of that. The big difference is that you get to see all the pretty status lights on an external model sorry, no pretty lights for the internal model.

Be aware of so-called "Win modems". While they tend to be cheaper than other modems, they rely on your PCs CPU for their processing power instead of having their own, on-board processor. This will slow down your PC while the modem is talking to the outside world.