Upgrade computer Was (Re: "budget" laptop?)

["Kathleen MacDowell" <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com>]

As it sounds like some of you might be able to offer suggestions, I
hope y'all don't mind a semi-hijack of this topic.

Situation: I've got a Toshiba Satellite laptop (A215-S4747) I need to
improve (as inexpensively as possible).

Specs say: AMD Turion 64 x 2 Dual core mobile technology, 1024 MB DDR2
SDRAM, 200GB HDD

Reasons: It's slower than molasses, and I think some of that is due to
a drain on the system resources.

 Up till now (since 8/07 when I bought it) I haven't done much but
browse and do some simple word processing. But I now need to install
some programs that will make it possible to do some technical writing.
For example, image processing and/or publishing, such as Flare. Even
SnagIt 9 bogs things down.

So do I need more RAM? Is it possible to add that? What else? I'm
thinking I probably should get an external drive. I think it was
probably a poor decision to buy a laptop, but then computers are such
a crap shoot anyway....(at least for me).

Thanks for any suggestions

Kathleen




-- 
Kathleen MacDowell
www.writefortheuser.com
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