As system builders we often are presented with the challenges of software licensing and figuring out what type of software license we need for every situation. In the case of Windows 7 the agreement states that you are required to purchase a full license if you do not own a previous copy of Windows. For systems you are selling on the open market this is the proper way to go, and frankly the only legal option available to you. The question is, how do you use an upgrade copy of Windows 7 when you are upgrading from Windows XP, and what are the limitations?

Over the holiday I was tasked with building a few systems for family members and I was presented with the problem of what edition of Windows 7 to buy, 32-bit, 64-bit, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, full or upgrade. As I mentioned, these were for family members so I took the cheap route and picked up a copy of x64 Home Premium. (I figured they can fend for themselves if they wanted more.) Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade currently sells for about a buck twenty and seems quite affordable for the average user, especially when you're buying it for someone else.

After the systems were built, tuned and buttoned up I sat down to install Windows. Normally when I do this on the test bench I opt to use the 30 day trial of Windows 7 Ultimate which allows me to use the full version of Windows 7 without assigning my product key to any particular system. My only limitation is I must conclude my system testing within the 30 day window else I need to reinstall or deal with the WGA nagware.

Pro tip: make sure you check your system clock BEFORE you install Windows 7 and ensure it is correct, the installation will use the current date as the beginning of time for when WGA will trigger.

Based on my experiences I know you are allowed to skip the product key step during the initial installation, which is how you go into 30 day trial mode. If you enter a valid product key during the 30 day trial you can enable the full product and are allowed full access. What is not always clear is that you can only do this if you own a full product key. As it would turn out when you are installing upgrades you must enter the key during the initial installation and is where I ran into some trouble.

Every time I have done a Windows install (upgrade or otherwise) I have opted for what they call a "clean install" meaning that I backup my important data, format the drive and do a fresh Windows installation. This is the only way to ensure that everything from your old system is gone and happens to be the only way to "upgrade" from Windows XP to Windows 7. Albeit on purpose or accident when installing Windows 7 with an upgrade key you are not required to submit proof of ownership making the install process a little different from before and much easier for those of you who are worried about your upgrade path.

I think you know what I mean.

Being a hardware enthusiast means different things to different people and usually dictates their interpretation of what it takes to be an enthusiast. For the purposes of this article we're going to assume a hardware enthusiast is someone who is passionate about computer components and is not afraid to push things beyond spec. This person will typically assemble systems using the best components they can buy and will often swap out components with the purpose of getting better performance, theoretical or otherwise.

Ironically a hardware enthusiast can also be considered a hobbyist and treats their craft much like a traditional hobby like nitro rc cars/trucks, model aircraft and even import tuner cars. There are a few major things that separate the different hobby types and happen to be one of the major reasons why computer hardware enthusiasts are not more common.

- Disposable income: This can be as simple as personal finances to help fuel your lust for insane gear. This could also be a very generous hardware maker who supplies you with the latest gear.
- Timing: I'll get into this a little later but to be a proper enthusiast you need to be on the tip of the sword when it comes to adoption. Basically you know the codenames, the launch dates, and usually have money set aside to jump at the right moment. (see option 1)
- Connections: Timing isn't anything unless you know when the good stuff is going to be released. Without that kind of insight you'll be using more of option 1 and beating yourself up over option 2[/list]

I think we can all agree that option 1 is really the driving factor behind what it takes to be a hardware enthusiast and simply put is the primary reason you will very rarely see prices mentioned in Ninjalane reviews. The theory here is that money is no object, you know what you want and you're going to get it no matter what. What you are looking for in a review is specs on the product and some sort of reassurance that you are making the right decision. With any luck you'll find the information you are looking for and if not have the balls to ask the editor or community for more information.

With that being said I'm going to table and disregard option 1 for now and start to focus on options 2 and 3. These two options are what is destroying what it means to be hardware enthusiast and discouraging new users from really enjoying and taking their hobby to the next level. To illustrate my point I am going to give a couple of examples of a real world situation. These examples are actually true and while they may not apply to one person they do apply to the community as a whole.


Before I get into my story I want to make one thing clear, the enthusiast motherboard is not the problem, in fact experimental motherboards are exactly what the enthusiast community needs. The only problem is everyone claims to have the best and in some cases the best boards are actually special edition products that only a select few ever get to see.
Consider this.

You are a budding hardware enthusiast, you have money and you have taste. The only problem is you have been in the enthusiast world for 6 months and your Saturday overclocking session is the loneliest night of the week for you. As they say, "no scores, no joy". In an attempt to improve your position and finally capture that wPrime world record you search high and low to get the same board that set the record but it is nowhere to be found.

Why is that?

Simply put the motherboard maker didn't take the 70's stock car racing approach when it came to establishing an inventory for their special edition product. Instead these special edition products were put into the hands of professional overclockers to establish records and create hype. The problem is that when a maker decides to only create a limited number of these products they run the risk of alienating a good number of potential buyers.

The solution here is option 2 and related to timing the market to buy early. You basically can't come into the current enthusiast market at the tail end and expect to buy the best gear and run away with gold cups. You need to plan early and hope your purchase decision will be the right one.

Of course the better solution would be to have ample stocks available or a contingency plan to produce more products based on demand from the market.


Not all hobbyists follow the cutting edge when it comes to their craft. For instance there are a good majority of hobbyists that prefer to be late adopters and make informed decisions. As we indicated in the first story this approach doesn't always work in the enthusiast world and many times when something is gone, its gone for good. Take into consideration the following situation.

You already have a pretty good system based on the latest enthusiast motherboard and combined that with a top of the line processor but your system requires a special memory that needs to be replaced.

Once again you check your favorite online retailer looking for a replacement. Not only can you not find your existing kit but anything comparable has been discontinued or is completely sold out. How are you supposed to keep a hobby alive if you can't buy upgrade parts on demand and when you need them? Or better yet, how can you push your hardware to the limit with no "real" way of getting it replaced? Let's face it replacing burned up gear due to overclocking is not a cost effective solution for the hardware maker, especially for those who can't handled hardware properly.

Sadly this scenario occurs quite often in the hardware world and is almost always centered on memory companies, their forecasting model and basic availability. It's a no brainer that expensive memory modules are not going to sell as well as lower end editions and it is also naive to think that marketing will not prompt someone from outside of the target market to make a purchase. Either way the "good" stuff is often first to go and once it's gone you effectively kill off any future enthusiast developments on that platform.


In these situations the basic moral of the story is that you can't be afraid to be an early adopter to have a competitive edge. That isn't to say that you can't be competitive with midrange gear or that you need a top of the line motherboard to capture top 3D benchmark scores, but it helps. The real issue is when limited supplies hinder the development of the community and only benefit the top professionals.

Have you ever noticed how much different an office can look between having the lights turned on vs turned off? As a developer who stares at a multitude of monitors all day I can appreciate the difference and often prefer ambient indirect lighting over the high power fluorescent lightes common to corporate America. But where did the practice of over lighting become the standard model for the modern office?

Searching the webby tubes did not give me a direct answer but I did find a curious Wikipedia entry that discusses over-illumination and some of the history behind it. According to the author over lighting started in the 50's as a way to draw attention to something such as a cosmetics counter or shiny new pots and pans. This was also a response to building designs of the time that favored less windows and then made up for it with electric lights. Worse yet some of these buildings were designed with a single light switch for the entire building.

Trends play a huge role in establishing a standard and if you get enough people doing one particular thing it will eventually become standard regardless if they know any better. For instance take an office tower designed in the 30's, 40's and 50's. Architects at the time knew about day lighting and its importance but as buildings got larger (namely an office tower) the additional structure required reduced available window locations and let's face it Art Deco was more to be looked at than used. Buildings in this era had plenty of exterior offices that received natural light yet they were often walled off and prevented any of that light from ever reaching the interior office spaces.

Now fast forward 30 years, we have a new generation of architects designing buildings based on what they grew up with. They know nothing of natural day lighting or how to best use what nature has provided. In fact these young architects are often required to take special classes on day lighting just to understand and learn what the previous generation knew instinctively. I know, because I attended some of these classes as part of my degree.

Lighting classes are quite fun, they teach you things like the importance of accent lighting and how a day lit space may still require additional lights to remove the shadows. What you may not realize is how few extra lights you really need. These classes also teach you how to design buildings to take advantage of day lighting techniques and how you can creatively project sunlight deeper into a building. I used some of what I learned in these classes when I designed my house and the forethought reflects nicely on my monthly power bill.

So where, in all of this, does it say an office building must have the lights on to be "professional"? Is it simply old world thinking becoming a standard? Or is there some physiological inbreeding that requires all of the lights to be on?

Best I can tell the practice is a carryover from the skyscraper era that required excessive lighting due to poor building design. Those practices were then duplicated in other buildings such as retail centers and low rent offices and have become the standard for what we see today. Sadly, the outlook to improve the situation is not good since the majority of commercial buildings are built cheap, fast and for no specific purpose. The idea here is to re-coop your money as quickly as possible and let the tenant decide how they want to fill the space.

Wouldn't you know it; most of these tenants have no idea how to light a space aside from turning on a light switch.

As many of you know Duke Nukem Forever has been released after a 12+ year development cycle and the reviews have been pouring in.

So far, they are all bad.

I was one of the lucky few to actually be excited about this game, not because I'm a huge Duke fan (which I am) but rather because I wanted to complete the collection. Deep down I knew it would be a bad game and not live up to any expectation but I didn't care. I just wanted to play the next installment, and have since it was announced back in 1998.

Heck I still remember reading the press release using Netscape Navigator rocking my i486 with 4 megs of ram and Cirrus Logic video card with additional VL bus support. I was cool back then, poor, but cool.

So what did I think of the game? Well I devoted 2 hours to play the first part of Duke Nukem Forever. Game play was expected and I was annoyed by the long loading times, and how short each of the levels was. Though as I played the game I found myself to be relaxed and wanted to see what would happen next.

Dare I say I enjoyed myself? Yes, yes I would.

The thing that sticks out in my mind most is how this game is an obvious console port, heck the game instructions are written for an Xbox360 controller. You can interact with the world and when an item glows yellow you know where to go and what to do next (thanks Call of Duty). Stuff like this annoys me most with modern games but they are necessary considering that EVERY game is usually based off an existing game engine and when you add modifications they never feel quite right.

The short levels and long load times are in response to how complex each of the levels are. Heck one of the reasons the game was delayed and delayed again was because the existing game engines wouldn't allow 3DRealms to do what they really wanted to do. In a way, the same is true today.

Personally I am glad the game has been released. The game does under deliver but only when you consider current game titles. Duke Nukem Forever is clearly a throwback to Duke Nukem 3D, the story is the same, the weapons are similar, and the treatment of women is the same. The only difference is graphics are much better so you can actually see what you are complaining about. My suggestion, play Duke 3D before making a comparison otherwise enjoy the game or simply don't play.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not obese, but I've got a lot more around my midsection than I'm comfortable with. My friends say I'm not fat, and compared to others, this may be true. However, I'm not what I should be. I stand at exactly 6' tall and I hover around 210-215 pounds. This has been the case for the past.. oh... eight years, and for the most part, I've been aware of it, but pretty much ignored it. My bathroom is very small in my house and we don't have a full length mirror, so it's been easy to not take a good look at myself. However, just the other day, I was out with my youngest son who is three. We were at a nice restaurant, and I had pigged out and was feeling quite stuffed. After the meal, he emphatically started grabbing himself saying he had to use the bathroom, so I took him. We went into the restroom and he went into a stall and started doing his business. Not having anything to do but wait, I was left with the only thing I knew to do. Check myself in the mirror. Now these weren't your typical mirror-over-a-sink type mirrors. These suckers went from floor to ceiling and covered a full wall facing the other side of the sinks. So I took a good look at myself and had an epiphany. I look like crap.

Before I had kids, I was very active. I wasn't into sports at all and I didn't run or anything. I can't catch or throw a ball, aim and I have exactly zero interest in any form of sports. I was the last person picked for teams in high school gym class because I sucked so bad at regular sports. I do remember my gym coach, (who was also the track coach and an avid runner himself) asking me to join track because I could run well. I never did join up because in my opinion, I sucked at everything else, so why would I do that? However, anytime I could do it, I would ride my bicycle all over town for no other reason other than to get out of the house out of sheer boredom (and procrastination of doing my homework). I would ride for an hour or two, two or three times a week. I was still 6' tall at the age of 15 and an awkward 135 lbs soaking wet. When I got to college, my roommate had been on the track team in his high school, and did well in it. One day, he asked me to go running with him. We ran all over town and he was having a hard time keeping up with me. I apparently had a great deal more stamina than he did. It was that moment that I realized I really should have listened to my gym coach when he was begging me to join the track team, and this is one of my life's regrets.
Fast forward a couple years to when I was 21 and when I met my wife. By this time, I had pretty much stopped riding my bike, but I was still in shape. I was 160 lbs at this point and was past the awkward skinniness. Then we had my first son. This was in 2000. I was forced to stagnate and would watch tv and eat for entertainment. By the time he was three, I was at 185 lbs and was getting quite the love handles and starting on a pot belly. By the time he was six, I hit 200 lbs and my knees started hurting and I started to become aware of my weight. However, I've done nothing about it. Now he's almost 11 and for the past four years, I have stopped gaining weight and I've been hovering at around 215 lbs.

I've decided to do something about it. I'm going to start working out at home. I won't say what program I'm going to be using (don't want to give it free advertisement if it doesn't work) but it consists of one hour daily regimen of hardcore cardio. No pills, nothing crazy, just pure activity. I won't even have to change how I eat, which is half of why I've never done anything about my weight before.

So I guess this will be a blog about my progress. Hold me to this guys. I don't have a ton of willpower when it comes to stuff like this.