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Tonight I finally got around to upgrading my first gen MacBook Pro to 2GB of RAM. I have been wanting to complete the upgrade for some time but have been putting if off due to something or another. Finally, I was in Best Buy the other day and noticed that they got the Apple Store’ish thing going on. So after looking around I picked up a 2GB RAM module for $74.99 (I know, cheaper online but I am a sucker for instant gratification).

Excited to finally have the RAM, I went home and prepared for my upgrade. First stop was to take the screws out to get to the RAM slots. It was then that I was baptized in to the world of Apple laptop engineering. I found what had to be the world’s smallest screws. Turns out that they are #00 screws and you guessed it, I didn’t have a thing for em. So, with the night getting late, I succumbed to desire to upgrade my laptop and went to bed, suffice with the knowledge that I would stop at Lowes on the way home from work the next day.

When the next day came, I started geeking out during my lunch break and noticed that my core duo processor could not support more the 2GB max. Since I already had a 1GB module and the 2GB module would put me at 3GB and over the shitty 2GB limit I decided that I would have to drop the 2GB and pick up the 1GB module and forget about the gig of RAM that I theoretically just lost.

Of course, being a geek, I had to weigh my options. Do I pull out the 1GB module and put in the single 2GB module or do I add another 1GB module. Its the age old 2GBx1 or 1GBx2 question. Well the decision was not that hard to make. Given that I can not ever go over 2GB and a single 2GB module would leave me with an empty slot that could never be used, I went with the cheaper 1GB module. Plus, having a matched pair of 1GB modules allows me to take advantage of the dual channel performance boost that Apple states could increase performance by 8%.

Anyways, I finally get my screwdriver, my new 1GB RAM module and went home to complete the upgrade. After five minutes of work I booted back up to the glory of 2GB of RAM.

After about 30 minutes of usage, I must say that if anyone out there is still running their macbook pro at 1GB, STOP! Don’t put yourself through the misery of 1GB any longer. There really is a night and day difference in how well the system performs. I am stoked now. Not as stoked as having 3GB, but stoked all the same.

Cheers!

This evening I experienced one of what I thought was a somewhat useless features in my 2008 Mercury Mariner known as a tire pressure monitor.

I was driving to Best Buy to pick up some RAM for my macbook pro when the low tire pressure light came on. I did not notice any change in how the vehicle operated so I continued on with my journey. When I reached Best Buy I did a once around the vehicle to see if anything looked wrong and nothing stood out. I went in and handled my transaction and came back out. Another look around and still nothing obvious. I then drove to Lowes to pick up my #000 phillips head screw driver that Apple loves to use on your laptops and yet again I took a look around and still I found no problem.

I started driving home and thought, what the heck, I will stop at the gas station and top off each tire just to be safe and hopefully the annoying warning will go off. I proceed to the Wawa around the corner from my house (they have free air) and began checking. Three tires down and I thought this was going to be a wild goose chase.

Finally, I reach the 4th tire, the rear drivers tire. I hooked up and saw that the tire pressure was only 20PSI! Holy cow, the tire pressure monitor really did work. I started to fill the tire with air looking for anything obvious that would have caused 24 pounds of air to escape. Nothing. Finally, after I get it back to around 40PSI it happened. I pulled the air hose away and air was gushing out still. It was a bad valve stem and it was freaking loud.

Quickly, I tossed the hose to the side (sorry Wawa time was of the essence) and quickly thought about where to go. PepBoys was my only conclusion and I proceeded to drive across town with air leaking. Somehow, for the first time in I think forever, I made it completely across town without having to stop at a single light (yes they were all green). I pulled in to PepBoys, showed them the issue, and an hour later and a $14.99 charge, I was fixed and good to go.

So, the moral of this long winded story is that if it wasn’t for my tire pressure monitoring system, I would have driven home and my wife would have found a flat tire when she went to take our son somewhere in the morning.

Wow, it is hard to believe that Patrick is already 6 months old. It seems like yesterday that we leaving the hospital and heading home together for the first time. Now, 6 months later Patrick, Amy and I have shared so many memories together. Here is a quick picture history of the past 6 months.

Thanks for stopping by. 

On this site I will share lots about me and my family. Hopefully I can get over my need to tinker and get down to just writing and posting pictures.

I was hoping to use Apple’s iWeb to do everything but a few shortcomings such as the large page sizes, issues with IE, and inability to add posts and content via a web interface became show stoppers almost immediately. It’s a shame because even with all the dumbed down aspects, its really is a nice app for the average run of the mill personal/family website. Maybe future releases and/or the creation of Apple’s MobileMe service will give me what I would like.

In the mean time, I am using my trusty blogging system Wordpress to power my site. The theme I am using is called Options and once I start posting more stuff you will really start to see how flexible this theme can be. 

I hope you enjoy.