Venture capitalist, Paul Graham believes there will be more and more web startups.

So my first prediction about the future of web startups is pretty straightforward: there will be a lot of them. When starting a startup was expensive, you had to get the permission of investors to do it. Now the only threshold you have to get over is whether you have the courage to. Even that threshold is getting lower, as people watch others take the plunge and survive. In the last batch of startups we funded, we had several founders who said they’d thought of applying before, but weren’t sure and got jobs instead. It was only after hearing reports of friends who’d done it that they decided to try it themselves.

He thinks that, although, starting a web business is difficult, it’s nothing like as soul-destroying as a 9-5 job.

In a startup you have lots of worries, but you don’t have that feeling that your life is flying by like you do in a big company. Plus in a startup you could make orders of magnitude more money. If the number of startups increases dramatically, then the people whose job is to judge startups are going to have to get better at it. I’m thinking particularly of investors and acquirers. We now get on the order of 1000 applications a year. What are we going to do if we get 10,000?

It’s hard to imagine the internet ever getting full up, so the prospects are there for anyone with a good idea, technical know-how and the initiative to carry it through.

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But are they bright and beautiful?

Sharp unveiled its new gargantuan 108 inch flat panel LCD screen at this week’s International Consumer Electronics Show. The company states they have increased the frame speed and enhanced the way LCD screens show rapid movement, making them smoother. Improving the moving image quality gives LCDs the ability to compete with plasma TVs in the flat screen market. Sharp’s 108 inch screen beats out Samsung’s 102 inch behemoth offering last year.

And at the other end of the scale, Verizon Wireless is betting that consumers will watch TV on a tiny screen and is introducing TV for cellphones. Cellphones already are being widely used as cameras and for recording video. LG and Samsung are producing new phones capable of receiving TV broadcasts. Verizon has not revealed how much the new broadcast service will cost.

When buying an expensive item like a computer, especially when it is to be a gift, you want to be sure that you’re getting your money’s worth. As with most markets, the computer sales world is a minefield of traps and deals that look good but do not deliver. Before making your purchase, know what you want (and need) and the options for buying it.

The big companies are not necessarily the way to go with computers. They may have the muscle to force suppliers’ prices down but they also became big by making sure that their profit remains healthy. Often your local computer store can offer you a better deal; plus you have the benefit of the personal touch - usually a small store is owned and run by someone who knows computers inside out and is happy to share that knowledge.

The best advice I can give you, however, is to know exactly how much you are prepared to spend and then do the research on the net to find the best deal for that price. Don’t worry too much about obscure technical descriptions; generally the higher the figures attached to a component, the better it will perform. Make sure that the price quoted includes a monitor. Very often computer prices are made to seem low by separating out the monitor and making it an extra purchase.

I could write pages of details on the various things to look for but that is not really my intent here. It is enough that you are aware that the purchase of a computer is not something to be done in a hurry.

Marketwatch dot com has a good article on the basics of computer buying. It’s well worth a read.

RadioShack was there first. There was a time when Radio Shack was the first and foremost chain of retail electronic outlets. In 1977, Radio Shack became one of the first companies to offer a mass-produced personal home computer, the TRS-80.

So is it any wonder that, when RadioShack Corp decided to trim its workforce by 400 jobs, the unfortunate employees were notified by email? Selected employees were greeted Tuesday morning by the message: “The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately, your position is one that has been eliminated.”

Years ago, when an employee was fired he got the news when a “pink slip” arrived in his wage envelope along with his check. As companies increasingly use computer technology and the internet in their daily operations, can this be the wave of the future in termination notification?

RadioShack Uses E-Mail to Fire Employees