I finally took the plunge last week, and bought more RAM for my PowerBook:

And the performance gain that I have gotten from it has been tremendous! I really knew that my computer was swapping a lot when I started playing with Netbeans, but I didn't know how bad until I boosted the ram. Now I have realized that many common operations, like starting a new app after I have been running for awhile, firing up a new Terminal, or even spawning a new tab in Safari were all causing my computer to swap. Things were being so snappy and great, that I was having trouble remembering why I hadn't put a crowbar in the wallet and upgraded earlier.

And then, of course, my beloved mac crashed hard. The mouse pointer froze in place, the clock stopped updating, and the thing wasn't pingable from my FreeBSD machine. Dead.

Many rounds of the Apple Hardware Tester later, I am not able to pinpoint the problem. I am, of course, able to pinpoint why I didn't upgrade my memory earlier -- because I didn't want my main machine to become at all unstable. But now it is, and as loath as I am to admit it, my newfound instability must be due to this new RAM (which I love so much!). Luckily, I spent a few extra bucks and bought the memory from a company that appears to be on the up-and-up, OWC. So, I think I will be calling them soon, to see if there is any way that I can have my cake and eat it too.

-Andy.