I have a summer-2006 iMac with 2Gb memory. I use it mainly for "mainstream usage" :
- browse the web (including web-based applications such as Gmail)
- access a remote server (through screen sharing / ssh)
- Skype
I do not wish to upgrade the hardware soon as it works fine; upgrading the memory is difficult where I live as I could not find the appropriate memory. Since I upgraded to Lion (though this was happening in 10.6 too), I sometimes have problems when I do 2 things simultaneously (web + Skype for instance) and fall into the karma wheel + swapping slowliness.
My question is the following: how could I just reduce memory usage simply as I do not need any eye candy transitions or such new features that may be consuming the memory I have. what are the obvious things to do to be on a memory diet?