Ok, I am a computer idiot so I figured I would reach out for a little help. I know that I have a bunch of crap running in the background bogging down my computer. I looked at my "Processes" tab on the task manager and I have 54 items listed and it is using up a good amount of memory. Many of these originate at start up. My question is which ones do I need and how do I get them not to start unless I begin the program? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Try going to Start > Run > type in msconfig

There is a 'Startup' tab that will let you change which program run when the computer boots.

You can usually safely disable all the "helper" applications that partly startup an application when you boot your computer. Adobe Reader, Real Player, MS office "helper" etc.