Many readers sent in word of Microsoft's announcement of the schedule for Vista SP1. The Beskerming blog has a good summary. Up to 15,000 people will get access to a beta of SP1 by the end of September; general release is targeted (not promised in stone) for early 2008. The service pack is said to improve performance and stability, not to add features.

phase_9 writes "The latest version of Mozilla Thunderbird may still only be in beta but already the user community have started creating an extensive set of viable Exchange killers. One such example is the latest mashup between Thunderbird and Google Calendars, providing bi-directional syncing of calendar information from both the client and internet. How long will it be before open-source software can provide a complete, accessible office suite for a fraction of the cost that Microsoft current imposes?"