It's way too late to be posting, but I slept until 9AM this morning, and can't sleep now. So I thought I'd show you guys what's up at RL.

Today I finished up posters and flyers for our family enrichment seminar we're hosting in February. Yamil did the design - I just drew them up in Illustrator and exported to PDF for print. It was a rushed deal all day though. We didn't get Nathan Renner's picture until 1AM. So I started on that first thing this morning. Then we had to design two different posters and two different flyers. Then once I got them off to the printer, they called back and told me there was no bleed space (oops). So I had to redo them and upload them again. It eventually all worked out, and they finished printing them about 10 minutes before they closed. THey did a great job, and the posters look great. See for yourself:

"If you build it, they will come." I have no idea where that originated. But it's true. If you make provision, there will be a need. If you install 3GB of RAM, Leopard will use it ALL!

About two weeks ago I was browsing Newegg and noticed their prices on 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 667MHz RAM had dropped below $100. My Macbook Pro already had 2GB of RAM (1GB of original and 1GB of Patriot), which is enough for most things. Had it not been for the fact that I've been editing wedding photos over the past few weeks, I probably never would have considered upgrading, but things had been a little sluggish in Photoshop (not too bad, but just enough to be slightly annoying), so I looked a bit more. I read up on the different brands, and it looked like GeIL was one of the leaders. Though about 20% more expensive than other brands, it had a name I remembered from my gaming days (where low latency and timing is everything), and it seemed to have good reviews. It was supposed to run significantly cooler than other competitors in the same price range. Since my Mac runs a bit on the warm side (you-could-bake-bricks-on-the-bottom-of-it warm side) components that have a reputation for running cool are of interest to me.

Unfortunately, my Macbook Pro (2.16GHz Core 2) only supports 3GB of RAM - bummer. Fortunately, Yamil has an identical 'book' and is always game for upgrading. So we decided to buy 4GB and split it 2 and 2. And we bought the GeIL.

Today, Jay went down to the states and picked the RAM up. I had it installed about 7 minutes after he walked through the door (not without snapping a picture first).

I had some doubts as to whether it would fit in the RAM slot on my Macbook Pro. Comparable PC systems are significantly thicker than the 15" Macbook Pro (which measures only about 1"), so space on the inside is counted and well-used. Then there was the fact that this RAM was third-party, and had a heatsink on it. I figured the heatsink was one of the reasons it ran cooler, so I didn't want to remove it.

To my surprise, it easily fit into the space with a margin of about .0001mm (that means I have no idea how much space there was) but it wasn't touching the cover which was easily re-installed.

So I booted up my Mac which now had the original 1GB stick that comes standard in Macbook Pros, and the 2GB of GeIL RAM. And it ran like a Macbook Pro with 3gigs of RAM.

Then I started working on some RAW images in Photoshop, and it ran faster than one of those suicidal squirrels that tries to slalom your tires as your driving down the road. The images are opening in about 65-70% of the time they normally did (which is very significant) and closing in about 1/2 the time. System resources are freed almost instantly after closing a program, while there was a delay of 3-5 seconds before. Programs are also closing much faster (about 30% faster) which I hope will lead to greater stability and fewer app-stalls while trying to close. Even at 60% load, the temperature is hovering somewhere around 120-122F (I don't remember the temps on my last RAM, but I know my fan has been running a lot less.)

Conclusion:

I've generally bought the cheap "value select" RAM. Always trying to save money... But I decided I'd shell out the extra money (in this case about $30) and get the good stuff. And it was well-worth it. The performance improvement is substantial, and the quality (so far) has surpassed my expectations. If you're thinking of upgrading RAM, I'd recommend this, especially if you have a Mac. For the price, it's a great buy. And as usual, get it through newegg.com they have the best customer service of any online retailer, and their prices are great.

I recently had to restart my laptop for an update. Until that point, it had been running stably running for 33 days, 4 hours, and 1 minute.

Imagine: 33d, 4h, 1m without rebooting after installing a program. 33d, 4h, 1m without a system freeze and a hard-reboot. 33d, 4h, 1m without seeing the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). 33d, 4h, 1m of user-friendly computing. Available only on Mac.

547,500 - that's the number of words I spoke last year. Yes, I counted... Now I don't really make a big deal about the new year. I don't make any resolutions. Last year I slept through it. This year I was up, but not because 2008 was coming. When I got my hair cut on December 31, the barber asked if I was doing anything that night. Up to that point, I'd forgotten it was new-years eve...

Yet there's something about trying to remember to write '08'. It's not just hard to remember - it looks weird. It's a reminder of sorts that we're trapped in this forward-linear time. That, try as we may, we cannot stop or move back - we're moving ever-forward. So 2007 is a sort of stamp on many events, in a way, sealing them in history.

So I'm laying in bed this morning, thinking. Pondering the fact that even my thoughts, while I'm laying there, are being sealed in history (time is fascinating). Pondering the fact that the first moments of 2008 were already 'gone', sealed by history, only to be revisited by memory. Pondering the fact that I spoke approximately 547,500 words in 2007, for which I must give account. Words that, once spoken, could never be taken back - only remembered. Then the thought hit me: what if they're forgotten?

I forget things all the time, so that's no big deal. I don't remember most of the words I spoke in 2007. But someone does - someone's keeping track:

But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. - Matt. 12:36

But what if He forgot?

Once a word is spoken, it's gone. It remains only in the memory of those who 'experienced' it. But when they die, the thing is gone with them. So a thing cannot be immortalized by mortals (thank you, it's been good.) The only way a thing could be sealed in history is in the memory of God. And what if He forgot?

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. - Heb. 8:12

And so 2007 is gone. The things I said and did, I cannot undo. What was left unspoken and undone cannot be changed. But fortunately, it doesn't need to. Because history's record of 2007 is clean.