Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Best practices for research in the Internet

Whenever you do research in the Internet try to make a summary of your findings and conclusions. You might not make a decision about the outcome of the research just now and therefore it will be much easier to go again through your thinking process and conclusion when you finally want to take action about the issue later on.

These are the important things to consider when making a summary of your online research:

  • make a dedicated note (txt, Word, WiKi) for the current research issue (e.g. memory upgrade for the 2nd generation MacBook)
  • put the question that this summary answers at the beginning (e.g. where to find good quality memory for the 2nd generation MacBook at a reasonable price)
  • write down any useful link together with a few sentences describing what the page is about (e.g. best price for MacBook memory but no-name brand)
  • at the end write down a conclusion (e.g. go not for the cheapest memory but buy brand x from store y)
Example:

Question:
Where to find a good quality memory upgrade for my 2nd generation MacBook?

Webpages checked for that issue:

  • Corsair seems to be good quality and works with 2x2GB kit, though my MacBook will only support a bit more than 3GB; also the speed for the 2x2GB kit seems to be very good (better than the 2x1GB kit)
  • Kingston officially only offer a 2x1GB kit, but probably their 2x2GB kit might also work with my MacBook
  • The prices for the Kingston are generally cheap
  • The Corsair memory kits cost a bit more
Conclusion:
The Corsair kit is about 20-25% more expensive (at trustworthy dealers) but seems to be the better choice because they officially say that the 2x2GB kit will be compatible with my 2nd generation MacBook; also the speed info is missing for the Kingston kit. I probably would by the kit from Digitec.

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