Memory

I was planning to upgrade the memory on my laptop, and currently it has 512.  I was going to buy a gig but I've heard maybe it doesn't run that great with different sized modules?  So, how bad is it, should I install the gig by itself or have the gig by a 256?

depends on what sort of memory you're using and what sort of memory controller the laptop uses, really.  if it's reasonably recent, you should be able to just throw a 1G in with a 256 without a problem (at the very least, it will be better than having a 1G by itself).

if your memory controller supports dual-channel mode, pairing memory sizes will effectively double your memory speed, whereas mixed memory sizes will be forced into single-channel mode (but otherwise still work fine).

if your system is ancient, it may need memory chips to be paired in order to work at all.

if your memory chips run at different speeds that the system can support, they will run at the slower speed.  if your 1G is faster than your 256, keep the 1G and dump the 256.

so, in summary, depends on what sort of memory you're using and what sort of memory controller the laptop uses, really.