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Apple Stores gradually have dropped the price of component repairs, which now are about 50% lower than they once were. This past summer, my sister replaced a cracked display and lid on her 2008 Intel MacBook Pro (15") for about $450 (It wouldn't have cost her that much if she had done the work soon after it happened, but she delayed after initially cracking just the upper housing. Eventually, her clumsy kid picked up the MacBook Pro by the lid and cracked the screen). Just a couple of years ago, that repair would have cost about $900. Beside great tech support, Apple seems to be passing along to customers the manufacturing savings it's realizing from gangbuster sales. If your local Apple Store no longer works on the oldest machines, they'll direct you to a reliable, affiliate repair facility, as will the techs at Apple's 800 support number. That said, if this Mac does not have an Intel Core2 Duo processor or better, it would be wise to direct the money toward the cost of a more modern MacBook Air (under $1,000) or an iPad (@$499-$800), or a refurbished deal at the online Apple Store. Modern Macs offer a lot of benefits. I know money is tight for the 99%, but be careful not to throw good money after bad when it's really time to upgrade. I have another friend on a budget who gradually spent nearly $1,100 reparing and upgrading a used, 2007 MacBook Pro a friend gave her last year. One thing after another went wrong and a repair tech really hosed her. She could have bought a new machine with that much money.

The test method here is completely different. Some factors that may slow down your performance when testing here (that aren't always detected by other speed tests) include... Incorrect MTU and/or Rwin settings and slow hard drive performance. Another factor that effects all speedtests is the route to the server. If there is congestion along the route then you'll see slower speeds than you might expect. We run our dedicated servers through one of the most powerful and well peered providers in the country... so if there is congestion the clients host is usually to blame (Shaw in this example). Speedtest.net's servers are usually so close to you that route is rarely a factor... but I personally believe that people are only lying to themselves when they test off such close servers. It defeats the purpose of this type of test.... do you want to know what your speed is to your neighbors house or do you want to know what your speed is to a normal, more realistic location. If you have a minute read this. Pay attention to the final paragraph. You're only as fast as the weakest link between you and the test server. I have done everything on my end to ensure the best possible testing environment now it's really up to the ISP's to get their customers routed through better providers and bigger, more adequate pipelines along the way. Speedtest.net isn't wrong by the way... I just think that they test people under unrealistic circumstances. If you're host is doing things right you should be able to max your line out here from anywhere in North America... :::.. CA3LE's Combined Test Results ..::: Download Connection is:: 53574 Kbps about 53.57 Mbps (tested with 50 MB) Download Speed is:: 6697 kB/s or 6.7 MB/s Upload Connection is:: 4159 Kbps about 4.2 Mbps (tested with 2.9 MB) Upload Speed is:: 520 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net (Dallas, TX USA) Test Time:: 2011-02-13 12:39:33 GMT -7 Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/TD6EGCR5Q&q2=608N2IVEL&dual=yes User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 [!] I'm like 1400 miles from the server by the way.