I've been using a 17" MacBook Pro for a couple of years now, it's still a great computer and it does everything I need it to do - largely internet based work, image processing, music recording, video editing and the odd email (no, they really are odd sometimes!)
I was pondering the other day, whilst muttering a technical curse in the general direction of my computer, how much time do "slow" computers cost us? Say for example, like me, you work from home and you have multiple clients relying on you for work output - then, if your computer stops for a minute once every half hour or so because you've asked it to do a couple of things at once, what that time over a week adds up to be?
Typically, I'm online anywhere between 7 and 9am, so let's just say 8:30am until 5:30pm shall we? I stop once an hour to get up and walk around, hug my little boy, make a coffee, and stretch my pins, so that's about five minutes in the hour, then I'd say half an hour out for lunch - but the rest of the time, I'm on the keyboard spitting out FB apps and content and competition tabs like there's more than one tomorrow. Let's 'do the math'
8:30 am - 5:30 pm is nine hours.
Nine hours less 45 minutes for sanity, less half an hour for lunch..
So, that's roughly 15.5 minutes per day that I'm begging my word doc to unfreeze, begging my lightroom to open (or close) without crashing, or swearing at Google Chrome (in pre 9pm language, thank you very much) ..just because it's Google Chrome!
That's 77.5 minutes per week.
You know how much an 8GB memory upgrade kit from Crucial costs for my MacBook Pro?
Description: 8GB Kit (4GBx2), 204-pin SODIMM Upgrade for a Apple MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (17-inch DDR3) MB604LL/A System Line total: $45.99
That's LESS than a billable hour.... Plus shipping... still less...
Where's the sense in putting up with lagging tech when memory is so cheap?
Now all UPS have to do is deliver it!
Tomorrow : Is it really 'lagging tech' or do we just expect more from our kit as days go by and web browsers suck more memory out of our little computers?
--Sime