10.29.06
Zoom Revisted
Remember way back when I added 512 megs to my trusty iBook and noted my ability to breathe easier? Of course you don’t, but I do–and it was like night and day. The ability to go back to a machine and drop in some RAM a year later has both financial and mental benefits.
The financial benefits come from falling RAM prices. Of course RAM will always get cheaper. But if you can wait a year, you can see a substantial drop in prices. 20%… 50%… I wish I had noted the price of the 1 gig RAM cards back when I got my PowerBook G4, but I have no doubt that the price had dropped at least 40% in the past year.
So now the price is down, but I’ve also become accustomed to the speed of the machine, psychologically. One year later, I can anticipate when the wait is coming, whether it’s that extra fraction of a second to get to Camino when it’s running Flash ad banners in three or four of the 12 tabs I’ve got open or it’s the 90 seconds that Illustrator takes to open up. Anticipating the wait actually makes the wait seem longer for me. But with the RAM upgrade, my PB (named Ono-Sendai) no longer waits that extra amount of time, so I get to feel the full mental benefit of that extra RAM.
Sure I could have beeen slightly more productive in the last year if I’d had the RAM in there, but them I would have had a reason to feel like I’ve still got a great machine, even in the face of the latest Intel Chip-Based Macs (ICBMs) with their fancy shmancy Cores and Duos and such.
My iBook lasted from July 2002 to August 2005 or 3 years plus change. At this rate, I’ve got till September 2008 to ride my PB, and I’m gong to make the best of it. RAM upgrade today… perhaps a speedier HD sometime in the future? Going from a 5400 RPM drive to a 7200 RPM drive would give me a great speed boost.
…but in the mean time, adding a Mac Mini to the entertainment center in the living room would be quite nice.