If you have ever visited the Apple Web site and attempted to discover which RAM to purchase for an upgrade, you will have discovered the utter uselessness of said Web site.  You will be asked for the production date of your Mac.  You don’t know that?  Do you have the brain worms?

Nobody knows the production dates of their machines.  You might be able to guess at your purchase date if it were recent, but surely there is an easier way to get information about your Mac.  Like, perhaps you could simply enter your serial number?

As it happens and thanks to the magic of the Interwebz, you can enter your serial number and get information about your machine.  You just can’t do it at the Apple site.  Instead you will want to visit this page on Power Book Medic.  You can enter your serial number and receive a host of information about your specific machine.

Included among this information is your machine’s production date.  You can then return to the Apple site and get your beloved additional RAM.

Thanks, Apple.  (That’s sarcasm.)  And thanks Power Book Medic.  (That’s sincere.)

I had a client complaining that her laptop was in turn complaining about the power supply was too weak (I think the warning was “your power supply fu is weak!”).  I compared the power supply she was using when she took her machine home to the supply on her docking station at her desk.  The station supply was 90W while the one she was carrying around was merely 65W.

My opinion is that both should be just fine.  This is further supported (beyond my vast experience) by the fact that under most circumstances it was really working more or less fine.  The screen would flicker when she was at home (possibly due to weak line voltage in her house wiring) but not all the time.

Regardless, I went ahead and gave her a 90W supply from our bin of lonely power supplies.  That worked great.

Here is the perhaps useful information for anyone wondering and wandering.

She was running a Lenovo 410 and that required the 90W to be happy.  I am running a Lenovo T61p and it has been working great with that 65W supply.

Perhaps that will help someone out there.  Perhaps not.

Be well.