Served piping hot and totally unaffected by the hard partying ways of Paris Hilton, the morning reboot: * Wired has a [first look][2] at the official 1.0 release of Windows Vista along with some commentary on why you might want to [hold off][3] on upgrading. [2]: http://blog.wired.com/wiredphotos7/ "Wired photo gallery of Vista Screenshots" [3]: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/reviews/0,72295-0.html?tw=wn_index_1 "Why You Don't need Vista Now" * Popular photo sharing site Flickr is giving users an early holiday gift in the form of [free bandwidth upgrades][4]. Flickr accounts now get 100mb worth of uploads a month instead of 20mb, and Flickr Pro accounts no longer have an upload limit are all. [4]: http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2006/12/ho_ho_ho_flickr.html "Flickr users get free upgrade" * Mozilla has released the first [public beta of Thunderbird 2][5] the popular email client from the makers of Firefox. The new version features support for tags, improved filing tools, better support of extension and more. The release is intended for testing purposes only. [5]: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/releases/2.0b1.html#download "Thunderbird Beta 1" * Skype [rolled out][6] a new $30 annual subscription plan this morning to make unlimited calls to mobile and land phones in the U.S. This is the first unlimited calling plan for the VoIP provider, previously the service was part of free promotion. [6]: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/technology/13skype.html?ex=1323666000&en=1ae098601517fc02&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss "NYTimes on Skype announcement" * Microsoft is now [offering a security patch][7] for one of the "zero day" flaws in MS Word. The second flaw, discovered more recently, is not addressed in the security update. [7]: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-dec.mspx "Microsoft Security pathc summary" * Google is [planting solar trees][1]. From the Wired article: "search giant Google (is) joining other companies in planting groves of pole-mounted solar panels ... generating clean power and providing a little shade at the same time." [1]: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72292-0.html?tw=rss.index "Google and other plant solar trees"