T M T

Hey I just got a new shiny aluminum iMac 24inch. Now my desk has become the picture of Apple commercial: space-age quality aluminum/glass iMac with no extra box, almost no wire next to the PC with a dozen wire hanging out from the back of the ugly black box to underneath the monitor. In fact, the entire iMac looks thinner than the 24 inch Dell monitor.

Well, you pay a high price for such beauty, unless you know a few tricks. For example, the base system is actually priced very competitively against similarly equipped PC systems. However, Apple charge a huge premium for any upgrade especially memory upgrade. For example to go from 1GB to 2GB costs $150 extra and to 4GB costs an additional $850. I bought a 2GB memory stick and put it in the bottom of the iMac. The whole process takes less than 2 minutes:

1. Disconnect iMac (3 wires) - 10 seconds;

2. Flip it around on my bed - 10 seconds,

3. Unscrew the bottom panel with one screw (last year’s iMac has 2 screws) - 15 seconds;

4. Put in the memory stick next to the original 1GB stick - 15 seconds;

5. Put everything back in and reconnect - 25 seconds;

Boot it up, it shows 3GB of memory, very happy. The total cost: $75.

DIY not only is satisfying, it also saves money.