Boosting Computer Performance with RAM

My desktop computer system at home is about 3 years old and I still keep if for sentimental value. Well, aside of course from the fact that it is still in the best shape and performance.

My only problem though is that the motherboard cannot already support newer and faster processors. Not that I want to change processor as mine is still perfectly working. But my point is that software is getting more complicated and my needs greater especially that I am getting into photography and multimedia and as any of you know, the file sizes of these stuff are just humungous.

My better judgment tells me that the best way to boost performance is to add more random access memory (RAM). Aside from the fact this really significantly boost up performance, even better than upgrading the processor, RAM chips are incredibly cheap. For 1 gigabyte of RAM chip, I bought one a few months ago for about 25 US dollars.


As a little backgrounder, the random access memory is the place where data and software currently in use by computer are placed. There is analogy I love and it goes like this. RAM is like a physical table where you have all sorts of work to do like worksheets, paintings and journal. If you have a small table, you cannot place these works all at once and you need to place the others on another place and keep swapping with whatever you want to work on.

In computers, if you have a small RAM capacity and you open many software, a swapping takes place between RAM and the hard disk storage. The problem with this is that it will take some time because the hard disk reads slower than RAM and this will negatively affect performance. Same is true with the computer technology as one will take extra time to swap between the table space and the other place where the other stuff are located.

I now have 2 gigabytes of RAM in my dear old laptop and I am thinking of adding more but the motherboard has reached its full capacity.

There is a good news I read on the web yesterday that says that flash memory (those that come in tiny keychain like thingies) can actually act as a supplemental RAM. In that article, it said that Microsoft through its new operating the Microsoft Vista, is capitalizing on developing flash drive to act as RAM. Wow, what great news. And flash drives nowadays could have up to 16 Gigabytes capacity and very cheap price!

How this works is that the computer moves regular accessed files which can no longer be accommodated in the RAM and store them into the USB flash drive.

I am particularly interested with this development because this can be very useful with my laptop. Laptops do not come cheap and they are hard to upgrade. I am sure that many of you laptop owners out there are as excited as I am.

Web Applications as Office Assistants for Traveling People

While traveling to a remote country in Asia, I would frequently visit internet cafes because there are not enough wireless services in my cheap hotel and in coffee shops for my ever dependable laptop.

One thing I noticed is that many internet cafes have switched to using Open Office in a span of over a few months. I asked the café assistant and learned that raid by Microsoft has been frequent and many internet cafes have closed because they were caught using unlicensed Office Suites.

I do not have problem with Open Office even though I have been a Microsoft Office for many years until now. But I recently read at a website that there are web based alternative to office applications.

And then I wondered how I could have missed Google Docs (http://docs.google.com). Google Docs has stripped features of the Microsoft Word but I think what this application offers is already enough for me. I tried to insert tables in the documents I could not find tables. Anyway, I usually don’t really use that much table in my documents.

I uploaded some of the documents I created offline through Microsoft Word, and voila! It was instantly added to my list. I could even share the documents I uploaded of created via Google Docs.

Google Docs also has a spreadsheet application that can replace Microsoft’s Excel. A lot of Excel’s most frequently used features are offered in this online application.

More and more web applications are emerging on the internet and this may be seen either as a threat or as challenge to innovate by big companies like Microsoft.

In the realm of organizers and email applications where Microsoft’s Outlook once reigned supreme, email providers Yahoo and Google have I think overtaken the niche set by Microsoft. I have always been a user of Google calendar and I am very contented with it. I have even embedded Google calendar in some of the websites I maintain.

Some alternatives to Microsoft Powerpoint are Empressar, Google Presentations, Spresent and Zoho show. Even in the movie, people are slowly moving to the web with applications like JumpCut, YouTube Remixer, MotionBox and Eyespot. For now, these online movie makers are still far from being at par with their stand alone counterparts considering the fact dealing movies involves very heavy big file sizes. But maybe soon when internet speeds will have greatly improved, so will online movie makers too. I can’t wait for that to happen especially that I like traveling around with video camera on hand.

And now, check this out: Online desktop. DesktopOnDemand offers 1 gigabyte of storage so that one can upload his files and other applications and access them anywhere like using his own settings on his desktop at home. Nivio offers similar services with 5 gigabytes of storage. And these are free services but can be expanded with minimal fee.

All these are very big proofs that the browser is the king of applications in today’s computing!