For those of you who really, really love your cutting-edge Flash content, Adobe made a prerelease test version of the Flash 10 Player available today. You can download an installer for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux from the Adobe Labs Web site.

Because this is a testing version, you're not likely to see any content that requires the new player in the wild just yet. But if you design or maintain Web pages yourself, it might be a good idea to give them a whirl with the beta player, just to make sure that all your old content still renders the way it should with the new version.

According to a press release issued by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit Tuesday, Office 2008, which debuted at this year's MacWorld Expo in January, was the biggest release of the productivity suite for the Mac platform ever. It's selling three times faster than the previous version, say Microsoft sales reps.

It wasn't all cheers for the latest version of Mac Office, however. Business users, in particular, were dismayed that Microsoft removed support for VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) from the product, which meant that it couldn't run custom scripts developed for previous versions, or for Windows Office. But in a rare about-face, it seems that VBA may be returning to a future version of Mac Office -- though a precise timeline remains elusive.

I'm a confirmed Ubuntu fan, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the release of Fedora 9 this morning. Fedora is the community-maintained Linux distribution that's the foundation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the leading commercial version of the open source OS. No surprise, then, that it has a tremendous following.

You can think of Fedora as a testing-ground for RHEL; it's where you can find the latest cutting-edge features before they make their way out to the officially-supported distribution. That means it's really best suited for hobbyists, but it's also a good way to get the jump on the best that Linux has to offer.

I'm not embarrassed to admit it: I'm a big fan of Office 2007. I think Microsoft got a lot right with its latest release, starting with the ribbon interface and including any number of tweaks and improvements that make my day easier. I can't say I'm thrilled about the price of the suite, however; nor the countless SKUs to choose from. Plus, I'm also a big Linux fan. That's why I always try to keep my eye on the current state of OpenOffice.org, the open source office suite founded by Sun Microsystems.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 has just entered public beta, and it promises plenty of improvements from the previous version. Mac users, in particular, will be pleased with the new native Aqua UI. Unfortunately, however, the one feature that I was really looking forward to on the Windows side -- compatibility with the Office 2007 XML file formats -- could still clearly use a lot of work.

IT managers often assume that open source software is more secure than proprietary commercial software. Anyone who uses open source can examine the original code to spot any lurking vulnerabilities, and potentially even fix the vulnerabilities themselves. With proprietary software, you have to trust the vendor to do it all for you.

But open source's supposed security advantage assumes three things: 1.) Someone is actually looking at the code; 2.) Security vulnerabilities are getting reported and fixed; and 3.) Information about those fixes makes its way to Linux distributors and other software vendors, who apply the fixes to their products. But what those things aren't happening? As a customer, how can you be sure?

Nobody likes desktop PC security software. It's intrusive, it slows you down, and it constantly needs updating. And if you think blocking viruses and other malware is a pain on your home computer, spare a thought for the IT staff at work. When you have dozens or even hundreds of PCs to manage, security can quickly become a fulltime hassle.

Webroot claims it can help. Beginning in June, the company will offer a new service designed to ease security woes for small to midsized businesses. There are no servers to manage, no database updates to download, and no client software to install. All it takes is a simple monthly fee.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it was delaying the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 due to incompatibilities with its Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management software. Now comes word that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has also been withdrawn from automatic distribution. According to Microsoft representatives, changes introduced in Vista SP1 affect how Microsoft's SQL Server database behaves in certain situations, potentially resulting in data loss or corruption.

Microsoft has been pushing SP1 out to all Vista customers via Automatic Update since last week -- pity the unfortunate Microsoft Dynamics customers who discovered the bugs. But the bright side is that Microsoft was able to put on the brakes before the same problems started affecting XP customers, as well. That's when the real fun would have started.

As of today, Adobe will no longer develop or support GoLive, the Web authoring tool it originally created to compete with Macromedia Dreamweaver. Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, and obviously it doesn't make much sense to compete with oneself. Really it was only a matter of time.

But I always had a soft spot for GoLive. Dreamweaver is great, but for whatever reason I always liked GoLive's UI a little better, even if the code it generated was sometimes quirky. Besides, market competition is always a good thing. Where now can we find a competitor to Adobe Dreamweaver?

The latest version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution was officially released to the public today after the customary beta-test period. This version is designated "LTS," for "long-term support," which should make it attractive to business customers who prefer a longer upgrade cycle for their operating systems.

Ubuntu 8.04 is available in a version tailored for server systems, but in the past it has been the desktop version that has garnered the most attention. The new release should be no different, as it includes a number of improvements for desktop users -- most notably, a new installer that allows the OS to coexist on a Windows computer without partitioning or re-formatting the hard drive.

The Web 2.0 Expo is underway at San Francisco's Moscone Center this week, and mashups are one of the hottest topics. Mashups, if you don't know, are named after the music phenomenon where DJs create remixes that combine two or more original tracks -- think Jay-Z rapping over the Beatles. In the Web version, developers pull data from two or more sites and combine it in novel ways.

Confession time: I've never created a mashup. Apparently that makes me something of an anomaly in the Web 2.0 world. So I installed the Intel Mash Maker toolkit, which went into public beta to coincide with the Expo, in hopes of getting a jump-start. Unfortunately, I'm still not much further along -- which makes me wonder how long it will take before mashups are truly accessible to most business users.