The newletter I just got a couple of hours ago says that Microsoft has announced the first "Full Featured" beta copy of Vista. It's supposedly being sent out to all the beta testers as we speak, so to speak. One site has a bunch of screen shots of all the wonderful features but the site was apparently too loaded to get around on with my slow connection.

Perhaps in a few days when I get a chance to look at it, it will be worth posting a link --- or perhaps not. What I see isn't the sort of thing I'd hope for, but I couldn't get in to get any of the "in depth" ravings.

The beta versions are being run on existing machines, so there is apparently some hardware compatibility. Beta users are typically developers and "power users," so they tend to have good (late model) hardware with lots of resources. It's us little guys and gals that will be having upgrade problems.

Side note: TWO new Mac worms in the past week, and a "gaping hole" in the Mac browser (Safari?) about a week ago. Nothing really to worry about, but it appears that some of the hackers are getting interested in Macs recently. One of the new worms spawned at least two "variants" within a couple of days after it was first found, so obviously somebody's watching the Apple.

John