A coworker approached us today wondering if they could get a performance boost using Samsung’s newly announced 256GB SSD. Most of their work is done in browser, so we said “no”. They’d only see benefit if they were reading/writing large files. Their system has plenty of RAM, and we decided to take a different approach. By creating a filesystem in RAM, you can read and write files much faster than on a typical hard drive. We decided to put the browser’s file cache into RAM.

We installed the Espérance DV preference pane in OSX to facilitate RAM disk creation. It’s really simple to setup. Just select how much space you want to dedicate to the disk and create it. You can have Espérance DV recreate the RAM disk on start and even have it automatically restore from a disk image. There is a check box for moving Safari’s Web Cache to the RAM disk, which creates the necessary symlink. You can also use it to speed up Xcode builds. Moving Firefox’s cache is fairly simple:

$ rm -r ~/Library/Caches/Firefox
$ ln -s /Volumes/RamDisk/Firefox ~/Library/Caches/Firefox

Since the browser isn’t having to hit the hard disk on every page load anymore, the performance is much snappier. Xbench says our random reads from RAM are now 86.19MB/sec instead of 0.61MB/sec when the cache was on the hard drive.

We immediately began looking for ways to get the entire OS into RAM; Tin Hat is a version of Linux that does that.

We’re very happy with the results of our RAM disk browser upgrade. Let us know in the comments if you’ve had a similar experience doing this in Windows.

The BlackBerry Storm, Verizon (VZ) and RIM’s (RIMM) answer to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, opens like a Broadway show on Friday. So naturally, Thursday’s papers and blogs are full of reviews. A sampling of the big ones:

• Walt Mossberg. The Wall Street Journal. BlackBerry’s Storm Presses Into the Touch-Phone Fray: Mixed positive. He likes the high-res camera (which does video), the replaceable battery, the push e-mail, the ability to cut-and-paste, the corporate security features and Verizon’s 3G network — an improvement over AT&T’s (T). He misses Wi-Fi, however, and he’s not particularly fond of the so-called SurePress touchscreen. “The feature does provide a more reassuring confirmation that a key has been struck or an icon has been clicked than the mere visual feedback one receives from the iPhone. But neither I, nor any of the several BlackBerry addicts I asked to try it out, considered typing on the Storm’s keyboard to be very similar to using the keyboard of a traditional full-sized BlackBerry.” (link)

• Joshua Topolsky. Engadget. BlackBerry Storm review: “The selling points are easy: the phone is gorgeous to look at and hold, it’s designed and backed by RIM (now almost a household name thanks to their prevalence in the business and entertainment markets), and it’s packed with features that, at first glance, make it seem not only as good as the iPhone, but better. The only hitch in this plan is a major one: it’s not as easy, enjoyable, or consistent to use as the iPhone, and the one place where everyone is sure they have an upper hand — that wow-inducing clickable screen — just isn’t all that great.” (link)

• Daniel Dumas. Wired.com. RIM’s First Touchscreen Device Almost Eclipses the iPhone: “WIRED Click screen is a revelation for touch compatible devices. Converts iTunes to BlackBerry media without breaking a sweat. Included GSM card means the Storm is a true globetrotter – it can work in virtually any foreign port. Photos, video, and text pop like Ice Cube’s AK (on a bad day). Posh fit and finish look rich enough to buy YOU dinner. — TIRED OS lag on a piece of hardware this gorgeous is unacceptable. Scrolling through menus is jagged, slow, and pokey. Accelerometer sometimes takes a good 5-10 seconds to orient itself. Lack of Wi-Fi is lame. Verizon’s totalitarian control over the Storm’s OS is even lamer.” (link)

• Yardena Arar. PC World. BlackBerry’s Storm: Awkward and Disappointing: “The decision by Research in Motion to differentiate the Storm by giving its capacitive touch screen a mechanical component (the entire screen functions as a button for confirming selections or initiating actions) turns out to be more confusing than helpful. Ultimately, the Storm’s touch interface feels like a failed experiment. — It’s too bad, because the Storm has some nice features and makes a great first impression.” (link)

• The Boy Genius. The Boy Genius Report. Verizon BlackBerry Storm review: “The good thing is that this is, afterall, a BlackBerry, and once you get past accepting that there will be some hiccups, it’s really not all that bad. It’s a great phone, a very good device for email, a really good media player, and a decent web browsing machine. You’ll just have to decide what your priorities are in a mobile device and see if the Storms meets that.” (link)

Have you weathered the Storm? Tell us what you liked — or didn’t like — in the comments below.

By Glenn Beck
FOX News Host/Contributor

While many Americans want to ignore the threat posed by Islamic extremism and collectively hope it has gone away, Al Qaeda is determined not to let us forget.

In their first video release since the election of Barack Obama, Al Qaeda’s No. 2 — Ayman al-Zawahiri — said Obama’s election was “the American people’s admission of defeat in Iraq.” Unless I’ve been holding the graphs of every measurable facet of the war upside down for the last couple of years, I don’t think that we’ve admitted anything of the sort.

The election of Barack Obama changes nothing to our enemies.

He also claimed that Obama’s idea of sending troops currently fighting in Iraq over to Afghanistan wouldn’t work, but we should send more anyway because the “dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious.” Classy guy.

But the overall message was very clear: the election of Barack Obama changes nothing to our enemies. Zawahiri said Obama appears to “continue to be captive to the same criminal American mentality towards the world and towards the Muslims.” He called Obama “dishonorable” and a “house Negro,” and he said Obama would continue the “crimes of the American Crusade.”

No change in our voting patterns, no talk of meeting without preconditions, and no blanket promises of diplomacy will be enough to make these people change their minds about us.

After we’ve been told for months that the election of Obama would magically make our enemies start to like us again, this might surprise some people. But the truth is no change in our voting patterns, no talk of meeting without preconditions, and no blanket promises of diplomacy will be enough to make these people change their minds about us.

Will Barack Obama be as tough as he needs to be? That remains to be seen. There’s not much in his record that makes me believe it, but I hope so. If he is, I’ll be happy to stand with him — because if our enemies aren’t defining us by party, we shouldn’t either.

Don’t miss Glenn Beck’s new show on FOX News Channel starting in January. Click here to buy Glenn’s brand-new book, “The Christmas Sweater.”