All other categories except RAM and monitor upgrades ranked at 18 percent, including hard drives, modems, and general megahertz (MHz) clockspeed. RAM, or random-access memory, is what allows your system to run "launched" applications -- the more RAM you have, the more programs you can run (and run efficiently). It can also slightly boost general performance speed by up to 30 percent, according to a recent article in PC World magazine. But only 12 percent perceived a need for additional RAM, which is unfortuante because it's the one investment that can get a little more juice out of your older system -- and increasingly becoming one of the more cost-effective solutions as well.

In summary, we noted the following items for 1998: email is king; people don't know what, or how, they should upgrade; and most people only have occasional crashes.

One final item: 100 percent of Remain.com's clients found us to be reliable. Because this survey was a small sampling, we feel we can't brag about this.... just yet (well, heck, we're just modest). Reliability is our watchword, and we at Remain.com are encouraged by this show of support. Thank you!