My MacBook is incredibly slow. How can I fix this??

I have a late 2008 aluminum macbook. It has been great for the past few years, but over the past few months it has started to move slower and slower. Now, it has gotten to the point where I constantly see the spinning rainbow and it's frustratingly slow to load pages, applications, anything. It is nearly impossible to do any work, and I am tempted to punch my computer screen several times a minute.
I have 14 GB available on my hard drive, and I recently updated to Mountain Lion OS 10.8.1.
Can anybody help me? Does anyone have ideas as to what the problem is? Any tips to speed up my computer?
Thanks

Hello,
To help speed your MacBook try,
Clearing off any unwanted files or applications.
Check any startup application and remove any from user account > startup that's not required
Increase the RAM to the max the MacBook can take.
Try resetting the SMC  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Hope this helps

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