What kind of computer are you using?
I got my desktop (hp pavilion, pentium 4 2.8 with a gig of ram) and my laptop, which is some sort of toshiba, but I don't have it here to look up its info.
How old is it?
My desktop is 6 years and change, and the laptop is a little over 2.
How long do you tend to go between computers?
Four years I guess. I mean I have not gotten rid of my desktop, which is so old and has so many problems that I can't even boot up with the case closed anymore.
Do you have an external hard drive and back up your system on a regular basis (you should you know)
I have an external, and I will be buying a second external as soon as I remember to go and get it. I back up my laptop (I bought that for school, so all of my important stuff is on that) on the external, 2 flashdisks, and my lab's network. I don't back up often enough though, probably once a month.
What do you think is a good price for laptops given their short life-span?
I was an idiot when I got my laptop and paid way way way too much for it. That being said, it depends on what you want to do with it. When I got my laptop, I though I was going to have time to game on it. As it turns out, I don't. So I bought a gaming laptop to be a word processor, which was a huge overpay. If you are going to be using it for documents and internet, then $500 should be close to your max. Also, if you're going to be using it for games, then get a desktop.
Any good sites you can recommend that will explain in dummy-talk how to slim down the standard programs computers run that just bog everything down?
I have a friend for that, plus I was a comp sci major for 2 minutes so I know some stuff. It's basically what others have said, if you don't know what a program does, and google says it doesn't do something essential, then you could possibly remove it.
Any laptops you are stalking these days?
I've been thinking about getting an acer cause they're so cheap, but I can't justify the expense at this time.