It’s Amazing What a Little Memory Can Do

A lot of folks know that I having been holding off buying a new laptop after my last one was stolen. I missed the laptop, but I adjusted to the desktop fairly easy. I have always been a fan of Apple and Open Source platforms, but both have become rather pricey. So I was looking at a Window laptop that I would turn dual boot with with Linux. So my list was shortened.

I began looking around the start of November which is always a great time for computer shopping. Black Friday sales always promise a laptop for $300 to $500 as a door buster deal. I didn’t run fast enough through Wal Mart to get that deal. The next week I heard that Radio Shack had one fro $399. It didn’t take time to find my friendly neighborhood Radio Shack over at College Square Mall. It was true they were a laptop for $399, after rebate. I decided at that moment I’d take it, An Acer 4315-2004. Well it turned out they just sold the last one. I heard that one before. What I hadn’t heard before was "Would you like us to try to find one for you?" I was thrown off by that, usually the sales folks say sorry, but they were going to find one. I was really amazed that they would and that they took the time to run one down that they could get in the next day without having to pay shipping on. That was one of the reasons I hated going to a Radio Shack anymore because they, as a whole, at one point didn’t carry the parts I wanted or even offer to get them in. It was refreshing to that they would spend the extra time to get it for me. I hope this is a new company effort push customer service.

After I got the laptop I noticed it was a little slow compared to my desktop and new it shouldn’t be.  A little research taught me I need to jump my RAM up to 2 Gigs with Vista. In the back of my mind I was thinking Vista can’t be that memory hungry. A month into the new purchase and I ordered a couple gigs and figured overall the the computer would still be a bargain.

This afternoon the RAM cam I installed it and this little laptop is a rocket. Moore’s Law will dictate when I replace it, but as of the moment this fast been a great tool to edit photographs from my Nikons, write blogs, surf the web and watch a few DVDs on.