HiTechHall’s Tech Waves

Ever wished your memory was better? Well, here’s a bit of technology that can help. It’ll tell you how much memory you’ve got, how much memory you’ll ever have, and how much extra memory will cost you, should you decide you need it. It’s called the Crucial Memory Scanner , and it’s free.

Uh, we’re talking here about COMPUTER memory you realize, right? A.k.a. RAM (Random Access Memory), this is the stuff that allows your computer to do lots of things (run applications, etc.) at the same time. You can think of it as your computer’s “short-term memory,” where lots of thing going on “right at the moment” are juggled, and action is taken.  Once the decision is made, that stuff is forgotten about.

Computer’s also have “long-term memory” or “storage.” This is the place where computers store data and applications long-term, even when the computer is turned off.  The hard drive is the name of the place where this type of “memory” is stored.

The hard drive is like a huge warehouse (Think COSTCO) full of shelving units stacked with data.  The data is permanently there (unless you purposely delete it) but it takes awhile to get at it…

The short of it is this: When we talk about computer “memory” we are only talking about RAM.

I’ve used this Crucial tool several times over the years, and it really helps figure out how much RAM you’ve got. But what’s even better is that it tells what type of RAM you’ve got, how much more RAM your particular computer can handle, and how costly various RAM upgrade options are going to be.

Once you decide how much RAM you want to add, you can buy the RAM from the website. But you don’t have to. You could just make a trip down to Pantip Plaza with a print-out of the kind of RAM Crucial told you to get and buy it there. Unless you want to feel like a Pachinko ball, just don’t go to Pantip on a Saturday afternoon. Trust me on this…

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