New Cool guy

Well, I am new here. Hi everyone! I am cool because I don't get overly excited like a lot of people that fly off the handle if something doesn't work out.
I am learning and trying to do stuff on my own rather than buy books etc. Computers are so difficult sometimes and with the tech always going ahead, it seems impossible to keep abreast of all the changes. I started out working with the Apple Lisa in desk top publishing, then advanced to the MacIntosh, then to the IBM Pc format with Windows 95, 98 and now XP Pro. Where will it end? And it seems that these things keep getting more upgrades and you have to spend money every few years for upgrades to the computers. Currently I am just learning how to keep my machine fast as it was when I bought it. I have a 1 gig pentium with 512 ram, but it just takes a while to fire up and open stuff. So I am here to try and find out what all the registries do and get into it to bring back the speed. Don't worry, I will learn. I am the type that I need to write stuff down and follow keystroke by keystroke. I'm not even sure if this is the right post and area for this, but here goes!
:-|