Protected memory
Comments: 7
I priced RAM here recently and was dismayed to find it pretty expensive at the moment. I ended up buying a couple of sticks from an outfit in America and having them shipped via FedEx (their only shipping option to Japan). It was a good deal though, and I was still ahead by a comfortable margin.
A couple of days ago, however, FedEx called to confirm the address because it was apparently illegible on the package (luckily the phone number wasn’t). That got sorted out and then I was hit with the news that duty on the imported memory was going to be ¥10,500 (or about $95 USD). Bloody hell! Not the kind of memory protection I had in mind.
I still come out of it having saved money, but somehow the sense of bargain hunter’s victory eludes me.
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Posted to Computers • 2004.10.03 (Sun) • 20:34
Comments
Posted by Richard 2004.10.04, 02:38
I’ve had the same problem in reverse, selling things to people in Europe from the US. By the time we’ve figured in duties, adjusted paypal money take into account their take, shipping, taxes, etc. it’s a disaster for both sides.
In my limited selling of things (mostly electronics I don’t want anymore) overseas the negatives outweight the positives by a large margin. Funny, the web makes it easy to do a lot of things some of that simplicity seems to be getting lost in translation.
I’d be interested in the vendor and the density DIMM you ended up putting in that extra slot (I take it that’s what you were doing).
So, here’s one for you and your photoshop-using RAM hungry readers: how do you know when OS X is going to disk because you’re running low on RAM, just disk thrashing sounds or is there a utility that tells you this?
I have a TiBook with 512 megs (the standard RAM when I bought it) and am considering the machine you just bought but I am not a photoshop user but am a user who runs a lot of apps simultaneously. I have no clue if I ever top out RAM and I’m wondering if there’s a utility out there that gives one not only a visual beaker but also some feedback on how full the beaker must be before OS X starts using the HD as RAM.
Opinions? Ideas?
Posted by Bill 2004.10.04, 08:31
When my brother was overseas, I would send him packages and make sure I valued the contents as “gifts - $0” if I knew he’d have to pay a large duty on them. Might be something to try — or at the very least, value the items less than they actually are.
Posted by jh 2004.10.04, 10:17
Richard —- I replaced the default memory configuration with 2 GB of RAM from Other World Computing (that link does not yet constitute an endorsement: this is the first time I’ve bought anything from them, but they seemed to get good reviews from people on various forums). The RAM arrived this morning and is beating away in the pulsing heart of the machine as we speak.
Photoshop is dramatically faster, unsurprisingly. I often find myself with a lot of apps open, too, so max’ing out the RAM was always going to happen on this machine.
As for checking memory and swap file status, try the Activity Monitor (in the Utilities folder). You may also want to check out a utility called Memory Stick written by Matt Neuberg which provides a no-frills view of what’s happening memory-wise on your machine.
Posted by Durf 2004.10.05, 17:06
@ Richard: Check out a little utility called AquaMon. It lives at desktop level (or as a window, but that would just get in the way) and feeds you data on your system. You can keep tabs on your pageins and pageouts to see how well your RAM is handling your tasks. Free!
Posted by Richard 2004.10.05, 21:03
Hey, thanks all. I can’t believe I let Activity Monitor get by me but the others are also useful.
I’m not a photoshop user but I tend to leave the following apps running all day:
BBEdit (8.0 connected to my server) Mail Safari NetNewsWire MarsEdit Skype iChat OmniOutliner or xPad or both In and out of TexEdit Plus and/or TextEdit in and out of iCal, Sherlock and AppleWorks WeatherPop and wStock are humming in the background
And… the verdict is, according to activity monitor, that I’m pushing it with my 512 megs of RAM, more might be better unless I quit and rerun some of this stuff.
I’m going for a gig in any new machine I get. Thanks for the tips and for getting me thinking about memory (or, for helping me remember to think about memory…).
Posted by UltraBob 2004.10.06, 15:33
I buy from memoryx.com Since Tod introduced me to them.
Posted by RKeir 2004.10.09, 05:59
I don’t know if customs agents in Japan do what they do here in Brasil - which is open everything. Including gifts. If the value is way understated, they up the tax. Generally businesses have to put appropriate values if they ship insured. The one good deal here is that books and educational materials can enter duty-free. One added thing I’ve found is that a number of large businesses with a big internet presence won’t ship hard products to Brasil, though they don’t really explain why. I kind of stumbled into your site here and wanted to also tell you how much I like it - and how much I enjoyed the fanta commercial. That’s one very weird clip. The colophon is a great idea too. Except that now I’m going to have to go and find out more about FiveDots and Silkscreen. And I’m going to have to figure out how to code and incorporate something like a colophon myself.
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