How can I tell if my newly installed RAM is functioning properly?

Question

Can someone shed some light on whether it's possible to tell whether my new RAM is functioning correctly?
Last week I installed 1G ram to my Intel iMac that already had 1G already installed. When I look at the "About this Mac" screen, it says that I have 2G ram installed on the computer.
I currently only have 2 iMovie projects and Safari open. When I look at iStat Nano, here's what it says under the Memory Status:
Wired: 156 MB
Inactive: 1.46 GB
Free: 48 MB
Active: 354 MB
Used: 1.95 GB
Swap: 148 MB
What does these numbers mean?
Here's another confusing part, the bar indicating memory usage is 98% filled.
Am I really maxed out on ram with just iMovie and Safari open? Can it be that my ram is not functioning correctly? Is there a way to find out?
Thanks for your thoughts.

Answer 1

You have 2 GBs of RAM installed according to About This Mac. As for memory status reports see the following: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor.
The following articles should help you understand how memory management works in OS X:
Memory Management in Mac OS X;
Memory Usage Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X;
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X.