I recently moved to where no DSL connection is available, so I'm back to my old, slow connect. Also just signed onto aol, which has taken over my computer. Whenever the computer is extremely slow and I do a warm boot (control-alt-delete), a list of the programs that are running comes up. There are a plethora!! How do I find out what all those abbreviations or acronyms mean, so I can decide what to shut down? Things like "rundll32" and "ipmon32"... I don't want to shut down something vital, but there's too much running in the background. Can anyone help me??

First, do a 'cold' boot. A restart or warm boot does not release memory handles. Next, download a free copy of 'Ad-aware' (lavasoftusa.com) and run it to find and delete all spyware in your system, this free's up resources.
Now as to the processes you see running. Unless you know systems, it would be necessary to search for the file (i.e. run32.dll) then right click on the file and view the properties to see who the file belongs to (i.e. Microsoft). The files you listed are legit.
I find that alot of users the I administer have unnecessary programs running in the backgound (usually in the taskbar) like Real Player and weather programs & etc. All of these things use system resources.
Make sure you modem or NIC card have the latest drivers.
Good luck