Is there a way to allot more ram to a minecraft client?

I have minecraft on my netbook so I have to find as many things to increase performance as I can. Few different ways, close down programs running in background. You can also disable services that arent being used by your system for a little boost. Oftentimes computers will have virtual memory enabled, in which they are taking harddrive space and letting the processor use it as memory, it might help but more often then not it does not solve problem. If you are on a laptop make sure it is plugged into wall, otherwise you are running at half-speed. I know there are mods for minecraft that decrease the memory footprint of minecraft as well. Good luck