mathieutozer.com

I'm the kind of user who can give the greatest computer a serious case of thrash (see: thrashing), so, I just went and treated the iBook with a serious memory upgrade - the best ointment for thrash.

Most people think that they need to upgrade their processors to increase the performance of their computers. In most cases, this user model is wrong. What's usually happened is that your applications and system software has balloo-wened so much that it doesn't fit into your available RAM as well as it used to.

MSN, Word, Skype, iTunes, iCal, iPhoto, iCliché... all take up space when they're open and being used, but if you don't have enough RAM, the system software goes "Ok, let's just pop this on disk until we need it next!". This is called "Virtual memory" (see the finger quotation marks?), because it gives the "illusion" of having as much memory as you like). Sounds smart, until you learn that accessing the hard disk takes mammoth amounts of time, compared to the snappy (but expensive) RAM.

So, doubling your RAM is like taking out the divider from two plane seats so a fat man can sit down. OS X (10.4) is that fat man. Having a roomy RAM keeps that blubber and/or all the leaner stuff that needs to fit in it happy and running smoother. A bit of spare room. No more thrashing (which, err, using this analogy means chopping that fat man into little pieces and carting some of him down to the cargo hold: not only messy, but TIME CONSUMING, which is the main problem of slow computers).

So, 1.25GB of random temporary housing for my modest bits and pieces should now prevent the ol'book from grinding to a halt.