Confusion about upgrading memory in a Mac

The one major thing that you can do with your computer is to maximize the RAM, but the hardest thing is to figure out whether the memory you purchased is right for the computer that you are putting it in.  Then you have the added issue of making sure the memory is right for the "OS".  Well, this article is going to try address these issues.

Given that the Mac has moved from the PPC chip to the Intel chip, you would think that any PC type memory could be jammed into the Mac and it would work.  Well, it's true!!!  You can plug in PC memory into the Mac and it would work.  Saving you a lot of money rather than going directly to the Apple Store to get your memory or paying the little extra dough to by memory that is branded for the Apple on online stores.

But why would online stores who market memory for the Mac cost more?  I took a long look at the specifications for the PC and Mac Memory, and they are the same.  So make sure you don't fork out the extra $10 to buy the memory that is marketed for the Mac.  It's the same memory!!!

If you decide to upgrade your memory, do make sure that you get the right style, and nowadays this is much harder than it was 10 years ago, because now there are so many different flavours of memory types.

Before purchasing your memory, find out what type you need by going to:

Finder | Go | Utilities (Shift-Command-U) | System Profiler | Memory

The following are things to consider when buying memory:

• Laptop Memory vs. Desktop Memory (iMac and Mac Mini use Laptop Memory)
• SDRAM vs DDR1/2/3
• PC/PC2 xxxx
• Number of Pins
  

Then there are other things to consider like whether the memory is fast enough, whether the memory is "Buffered", and whether to overclock.

How fast the memory behaves is based the read/write memory blocks of the against the number of clock cycles required to complete the task.  This is defined by CAS Latency or CL Timings, most memory performs at a reasonable rate.  The most frustrating was that there were no CL Timings listed for Mac memory, however if you look up the manufacturer's website, you can find those out by matching the PC specifications with the Mac ones.

The other consideration to purchasing memory is "Buffered" memory.  These types of memory are used in servers, and store instructions that are used continuously, and you will rarely find "Buffered" memory in laptops.

As for overclocking, I never choose to overclock, because overclocking will overheat your system, unless you have the necessary hardware to keep you computer cool.

If you are interested in understanding more about memory, here is a great article that describes the different types of memory in detail.

In summary, save your money, don't be sold on the memory that seems to claim that the memory is guaranteed to work on the Mac.  However, ensure that you are purchasing the correct memory by matching the memory specifications described by what is already in your system.

Is moving Adobe CS from PC to Mac painful?

Do not think straight out that you can just purchase the upgrade of the other OS version, and expect that your upgrade license number would work with it.  It won't.  Why do you think is it so hard to migrate applications between platforms?

Well, for one thing, it's not that easy for software vendors to do that.  It's almost like when Adobe and Macromedia competed with each other that web and graphics designers had to decide on whether to go the Adobe or Macromedia route.  Once they committed to their software of choice, they were committed.  Deciding to switch would mean to give up the initial cost of their original purchase and shelling out another $2000 to get the other suite.  Even if the companies accepted their competitor's licenses, how could they even verify that the license were legitimate to allow their customer to purchase the full suite as an upgrade.

With Vista tanking in sales, and Microsoft man-handling their vendors to sell Vista, its no wonder so many people have switched to Macs: including myself.  And all who have switch, would like to move all of their software over as well.  Certainly, Boot Camp and VMWare Fusion or Parallels would offer a short-term solution, but it would be nice to be able to run the software natively, and not have to be dependent on multiple OS for an end-user's solution set.  So many have requested that Adobe (mainly) and many other vendors to provide a way to move their licenses over to the Mac.

First of all, Adobe is not obligated to provide this to their customers, but if they didn't, it would put them in the same boat as Microsoft, and piss off their loyal customers.  Because the licensing structure was probably created differently in each of the OS implementations of the same software, it would have been hard to have had the ability to create cross-license checks.  So the reason why Adobe is asking you to "destroy" the software (hence the Letter of Destruction) is because they are essentially giving the end-user a completely new license for the price of an upgrade (hence the reason why the switch is only eligible to upgrades and not cross-version).

So Adobe is taking extra steps to provide a solution to your problems, as they are asking us to take extra steps to ensure that certain things are in order.  A little pain for long-term gain.