looking to upgrade

[v-m]

hey folks

i have an IBM ThinkCentre Pentium 4 (2.6 Ghz and 256 mb RAM) and have never upgraded my computer. ever.

i know it may sound pathetic and i won't deny that, but i love her to bits and don't want to get rid of her. well, not just yet anyway

so here's the deal. i have recently learnt that i can procure new and awesome hardware at really great prices and figured its time the poor girl gets an upgrade. i dont use my computer for hardcore processes, and the heaviest program i run is probably microsoft office 2007. aside from listening to music, watching movies and using the internet, my machine doesnt need to perform but i have to admit, running all those processes simultaneously does take its toll.

what i'd like for you tech savvy computer experts out there to do is suggest to me what i should go ahead and buy. i'm assuming RAM but i want to get sound advice before i go fiddling around with my machine.

any help whatsoever would be much appreciated

thanks!

p.s: i'm also considering buying an external hard drive to store more music and transfer stuff from my friend's computers, so any suggestions about that would be great too! something light and portable preferably.

[desiibond]

For your tasks, a RAM upgrade should be more than enough. Get 1Gb or 2Gb of RAM.

since you already have a decent PC, get RAM for now and after few months, once Intel's Nehalem and AMD's Phenom stabilize in the market, get one of them that suites your budget.

PS: nehalem and Phenom are major architecural changes from Intel and AMD respectively.