iBooks
only come with a standard 32 megs of RAM. [revised - the 2000
iBook now comes with 64 MB of RAM] In this day and age of Java-powered
web, high-performance multimedia, and advanced gaming, that's
hardly enough. I personally added 64 megs, but even another 32
would be great.
I
noticed the difference right away. Once I had the RAM installed,
(which took about five minutes, plus another 20 before, spent
figuring out where I'd put my mini-screwdrivers) the first thing
I did was start messing around with the site, tweaking and adding
some images, etc. I could not believe how much quicker, and even
stabler, the programs I was using ran. Usually, if I tried to
run all four programs that I use to create and test the site (Adobe
PageMill, AppleWorks, Netscape Communicator, and SimpleText) at
once, I would slow down to a pace reminiscent of my old PC. I
might as well just have been running SimpleText, considering how
quick and easy the switches were.
The
next thing I did was a little bit of random surfing on my favorite
sites. I couldn't believe how much faster images loaded. I figured
that for every hour I surfed, the speed bump would save me 10
minutes of hang time, which really is a lot. Even streaming QuickTime
was faster!!!
I
would say of all the upgrades I've applied to my iBook, this one
was the most worth the cost. Every single second I use the computer,
it makes a difference, unlike my external drives, etc., which
only benefit me a few minutes out of each day.
