Given the OE behavior you describe, I would first make sure my virus program
is updated, then run a complete scan. Scandisk and defrag might be a good
idea as well.
You shouldn't get a resource warning until you approach a 10% figure. If all
else is well, you have too many open programs.
Use Ctrl-Alt Delete to see what is open at any given time. It's not unusual
to find programs of which you are not aware.
Examine what you find, and see what you can eliminate. Given that you are on
a dial-up connection, you can do without Zone Alarm, for example.
****************************************************************************
***********************************************************

I have a Pentium 3  450 with 320 MB Ram, running Windows 98SE. I don't have
much running in the background except programs like yahoo messenger,
zonealarm, antivirus,internet call manager,and the internet. Sometimes the
resources go down into the 30's and often with everything closed is only
around 74, sometimes has been as high as 82 with everything closed. I am not
sure how high it should be, but sometimes I get a warning that there isn't
enough resources to answer the call manager. Sometimes so low the computer
hangs on shutdown and one day even outlook express was acting weird, I
couldn't open mail and in trying to send an e-mail it selected the first
person in my contacts as well as the person I was trying to send to.
I have Photoshop and it opens and seems to  run fine.

               The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
              Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along
         with our NOSPIN Power Linux CD...  at a great price!!!
             http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml