Several days ago, some Windows 7 users made an interesting observation that the Windows 7 disk checking utility consumes a large amount of memory in a very short time. This story has since gained momentum in the blogosphere under the snowball effect leading to the sensationalist belief this was a “showstopper” bug for Microsoft.

Whilst I agree there is some merit to debate the technical aspects of this phenomenon – why this process functioned properly in previous versions of Windows without much RAM, at the same time I’m surprised at just how many users still in this day and age are superfluously concerned about resource utilization, which I’m coining “resource-spotting” – a nod to trainspotting. To put that in context, if you ran this tool without the Task Manager side-by-side, would you be none the wiser?

Time and time again, I come across people who watch their Task Manager window like if it’s the Olympics 100m sprint. The same people who probably also have the “CPU Meter” gadget on their desktop. I admit there was a time when it might have been useful to minimize the “baseload” of CPU and RAM utilization to maximize performance, but with the prevalence exponentially more powerful hardware and more preemptive resource optimizations, it’s just no longer practical or relevant.

Take for example Windows Vista and Windows 7. These are modern operating systems with a number of background services that aim to optimize performance by identifying and precaching resources you may need to use before you use them. For this reason, around 70% of your RAM when idling (in my case 4GB out of 6GB) is actually utilized for caching. Of course when other applications need RAM, the cache is automatically reduced to accommodate other processes.

Another common example I see often these days is people complaining about Firefox’s memory footprint, or any next-generation browser for that matter. As a fulltime Firefox user, I confess Firefox is my most memory-consuming process for the most of my day, but I’m not at all concerned about this and why should I? If I can keep open dozens of tabs open which are all equally responsive to switch between and AJAX-heavy webpages load and perform extremely well, why should I use a slower but less memory-intensive browser if I have the memory to spare?

To me, what’s more disappointing about resource utilization is under-utilization. If I have the resources to spare, at any point in time where performance can be improved by utilizing more resources but isn’t, that’s a much worse deficiency of modern computing than a large number in a table of numbers.

It would appear that a conference sells out pretty fast when a free netbook with Windows 7 is up for grabs, as Microsoft TechEd Australia helped demonstrate over the past couple of weeks. If you’ve missed out however, there is another way to get in. Free as a matter of fact, and the odds are pretty good!

The Codemasons’ Guild, a fancy (but admittedly shorter) name for the Microsoft Australia Windows Mobile developers club, is hosting two separate competitions that gives three (3) Australian developers and two (2) Australian higher-education students an all-expense paid trip to TechEd plus extras.

The competitions wittingly named “Master Codemason” and “Student APPrentice” asks developers and students respectively to come up with an interesting Windows Mobile application idea that fits one of twelve broad categories. Although one could argue fart-noise applications falls into either “entertainment” or “health”, I’d personally advise against them.

Whilst the site is a little contradictory in its terminology, it’s my understanding that besides a brief text description of the application, you will also need to submit some functional code and screenshots/videos of the application running on device or emulator. It doesn’t have to be perfect however as part of the prize is some technical mentoring to ready the application to market, but don’t leave it at “Hello World” either.

The competition closes August 17 for students and August 21 for developers so you better get your thinking caps on. You can find more details including but not limited to the enthralling terms and conditions of the competition at the official website.

A fortnight ago, detailed plans of the long anticipated Microsoft Store were revealed in all its theoretical glory when Gizmodo published over 50 slides from a Powerpoint presentation prepared by the project’s consultancy firm.

At the time, Microsoft acknowledged the plans but insists the plans are early prototypes and have not been finalized. Now it appears they’ve made up their minds on at least one thing, the logo, having just filed it last week at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The design, which bears very strong resemblance to the Windows logo in both color and form, is registered to cover a multitude of goods and services including “retail store services and online retail services featuring computers, computer hardware, software, computer games, computer peripherals, portable music players and accessories, personal digital assistants, cell phones and accessories, video game consoles and accessories, webcams, books, clothing, back packs, messenger bags, computer bags and novelty items”.

I wonder if “novelty items” include the kitchen sink.

Roughly eleven months ago, the big blue giant finally stood up for itself when it launched the largely popular and successful advertising campaign officially known as “Life without walls” featuring the infamous “I’m a PC” television ads. However, it might not have been the only advertising campaign Microsoft was considering at the time if some interesting videos I found today are any indication.

In the Vimeo account of John McNeil, then creative director at McCann Worldgroup – one of the advertising agency competing for the Windows gig at the time, are nine videos all titled “Life Comes Together” uploaded roughly 11 months ago. Both the timing of these videos and the fact that they conclude with the Windows logo leads me to the assumption that they are commercials from an alternative Windows campaign McCann must have pitched to Microsoft. Obviously history tells us they lost since Microsoft went with the “Life without walls” campaign pitched by Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Comparing the two campaigns, these ads are even more emotions-driven than “Life without walls”. In except just two scenarios where we actually see the screen of a computer, almost all of these ads focus on experiences and moments that are either enabled or could be enhanced by “Windows”. All in all, it’s the sort of ads that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I find them quite enjoyable.

I’ve embedded them all here for your enjoyment.

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In the rare chance you’ve ever criticized a Microsoft advertisement, well here’s your opportunity to finally unleash your creative spark to do one better and earn some cold hard cash as well.

Gearing up to the wave of Windows Mobile 6.5-powered devices shipping later this year, Microsoft is currently planning a large-scale worldwide advertising campaign starting October 1 to promote the new “Windows Phones” brand. And they want your ideas on innovative ways to promote “Windows phones”.

Microsoft has teamed up with Zooppa.com, a website that allows companies to publish advertising briefs and crowdsource freelance graphics designers, directors, animators and writers to develop innovative creatives in return for cash prizes, to offer anyone the opportunity to contribute video, print, radio or web ads or even ad concepts with a total cash prize of $14,000 up for grabs.

The competition will run from August 5 to October 5 at the end of which both Microsoft and the community will decide the best ads in each category.

Although the competition is currently only on Zooppa’s Italian website, I’m hoping it will be available to English users as well. If not, then you better learn some Italian quick. However if you’re already fluent in Italian, you can find a more detailed brief here.

Even though the product still leaves much to be desired, it’s nice to see Microsoft experimenting with new concepts not just in technology but marketing too. If some good ads do come out of this competition, it’ll be interesting to see too if Microsoft will actually run them.

Update: As commenter “The Evangelist” have noted, the English Zooppa competition page seems to be up now but still features an Italian brief. Hopefully it’s a sign that it will indeed be open to English users too.

Those fun and quirky animated characters at the beginning of every Windows 7 tour video released earlier are back to do more of what they do best, animate! Replacing a static imagery, the new Windows 7 tours page now features a fancier Silverlight player that does a little more than just play videos. Once loaded, each of the four “features” come to life when you hover over them.

Now I know I’m writing about fluff but the reason I’m keeping a sharp eye on these animated characters is because their production value is unusually high if for just a brief video introduction or website animation. I’m going to go out on a digital limb and predict we’ll be seeing more of these guys in the Windows 7 advertising campaigns to come.

Update: Thanks to a heads up from commenter “Martin”, this is the work of Digital Kitchen.