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Social networking site Facebook has more than 350 million active users, and more than 35 million users update their "status" every day. They could be updated with personal information, music, videos, links, or anything that users feel the need to share with their social group.

During 2009, nearly 13 billion of these status updates were posted, and Facebook has released its "Top Status trends of 2009," indicating just what was on people's minds.

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Betanews readers are an opinionated lot, so it's no surprise they've got a few things to tell Microsoft about how to run the business. On December 7, I asked readers to offer their advice for Microsoft in 2010 -- and, whoa, have they done it.

By the way, I'll offer advice, too, sometime next week. I've been doing it for the last couple years in lieu of making predictions. Meanwhile, here are readers' recommendations:

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I like my toys behind the wheel as much as everyone else. Between my GPS, iPod, BlackBerry, and DVD player, I've got enough technology to avoid getting lost, stay entertained, stay connected, and keep my seat-belted kids from beating each other silly. I have no idea how my Luddite parents survived the Dark Ages before in-car electronics, and I'm not sure I ever really want to know.

Before setting off on a drive, it takes me about five minutes to get all my doo-dads connected and working. My wife, bless her, usually gives me a small grace period for fiddling before her patience wears thin.

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At some time during the middle of last week -- quite possibly, on the very day that Microsoft announced its settlement with the European Commission -- Web analytics firm StatCounter registered more Web site hits coming from Web browsers announcing themselves as Mozilla Firefox 3.5 than from either Internet Explorer 7.0 or IE8.

According to the fairest interpretation of StatCounter's data, that means Firefox 3.5-branded browsers are more actively used, on all platforms including Linux, than any single version of any other browser, including IE. As of Monday morning, FF 3.5 was responsible for 21.93% of HTTP requests tracked by StatCounter, versus 21.2% of requests from IE7, 20.33% from IE8 (buoyed recently by Windows 7's success), and 13.89% from IE6.

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Earlier today, I posted "10 things Microsoft did right in 2009." I originally planned to post the did-wrong list tomorrow. But in view of today's news about Microsoft's out-going chief financial officer, Chris Liddell, I changed the timetable. Liddell's departure is one of the things Microsoft did wrong in 2009 (He will become CFO at GM).

The did-wrong list was way too much easier to compile than the did-right list. I could easily put 20 items here. The year 2009 was perhaps the most difficult for Microsoft since Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the company nearly 35 years ago. Company executives can thank economic turmoil for the hardships. But Microsoft could have handled 2009 much better than it did. Hopefully, 2010 will be better.

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The agreement between the European Commission and Microsoft announced last Wednesday did not mention "Free Software" by name. There is no corporation or partnership by that name, at least not officially, though up until the resolution of the dispute last week, there had been occasional hints from outgoing Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes that any agreement with Microsoft must take "free" into account, almost as though it were "Free Software, Ltd."

It's a very serious issue for many European developers, as Free Software had been treated as a worthy-of-all-caps entity in drafts of the European Interoperability Framework from last year. But recent discussions on revising the EIF have included suggestions from many sources, including a controversial one from the Polish government, that strike references to Free Software as a legal entity, especially as one that deserves equal protection as a limited legal body.

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We exit 2009 with what appears to be the first sign of a plate-tectonic shift in both consumer and business technology -- specifically, a shift in interest and focus. It's a broader world out there, full of new and old companies with different names and real technology agendas that suddenly seem very realistic. Could we really be emerging into that competitive playing field that so many technologists had been seeking for so long?

It's not that we're emerging into a world without Microsoft (some of us technology journalists wouldn't be able to continue breathing). But even Microsoft's successes in 2009, Windows 7 being the biggest among them, have helped take the focus away from Vista as a roadblock to evolution. And Microsoft's biggest failure in 2009 -- the lack of a new Windows Mobile -- has helped turn consumers' attention toward Google as the biggest perceived threat to Apple's iPhone in the mobile space.

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The year 2009 is expected to be the first when mobile phones start gaining real traction in holiday shopping. Nearly one in five consumers will use a mobile device to assist in their holiday shopping this year, according to Deloitte's most recent Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends. Shoppers will use their mobile devices to find store locations, research prices, find product information, get coupons, read reviews and more. An estimated one in four consumers will even make a holiday purchase with their phone, representing a sizable chunk of potential sales.

It's little wonder then that retailers are showing more interest than ever before in the mobile Web. Recent Nielsen data shows that the mobile Web audience in the US grew a whopping 34 percent between July 2008 and July 2009, in spite of the economic climate and otherwise bleak consumer spending. Ironically, the down economy may be a key factor luring consumers to the mobile Web this holiday season, as they use their mobile phones to compare prices and find the best bargains, even in real-time as they peruse malls and stores.

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2:30 pm EST December 21, 2009 · UK-based carrier O2 is now saying, through its Twitter feed, that the fault related to iPhone data service outages throughout Britain has been fixed. Customers may continue to see some delay, however, before their service is fully restored.

As of late Monday afternoon in the UK (late Monday morning in the US), a data network outage continues to impact O2 network customers -- specifically those using Apple iPhone 3G and 3G S models. O2 acknowledged the problem yesterday via Twitter, and once again this morning.

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The year 2009 was pretty good to Microsoft, even as the weak economy ravaged sales. Microsoft actually did a few things right. The did-wrong list will come later today (not tomorrow as previously posted). For now, I present the list of 10 things Microsoft did right in 2009 -- in no order of importance. They're all important. Microsoft:

1. Flawlessly launched Windows 7. There's a metaphor somehow in Microsoft launching Windows 7 during the 40th anniversary year of the Apollo moon landing. Microsoft's precision reminds of NASA sending man to the moon. While the human risk wasn't as great and many of the engineering challenges were far less than Apollo 11, Windows 7 needed perfect launch and delivery, from testing to release candidate to voluming licensing availability and retail release. Microsoft pulled it off.

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It's the last shopping weekend before Christmas and perhaps you just don't know what to give that special geek in your life. I've prepared a list of 10 gifts, none of which might make your holiday list without a little prodding. I intentionally picked gifts I would want to give that you might not think to give. If you've got other, hopefully better, ideas, please share them in comments. A list of 10 suggestions isn't enough.

1. Panasonic Lumix LX3K -- Earlier this week, Amazon had this compact digital camera for $398.95 but sold out. Adorama lists the camera for $499.95, but the price drops to $398.95 in the shopping cart. B&H Photo offers the LX3K for the same price. Four hundred bucks is simply an excellent price for what is one of the most versatile compact digicams available -- and it's suitable for novices or pros.

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"Operation Chokehold" has come and gone, with no sign it even put AT&T in a headlock. But with so many people complaining of service already so spotty, could anyone really tell the difference short of network failure? For AT&T, there is little victory in surviving the coordinated, customer-driven denial-of-service attack. The publicity has done damage enough, and, as I blogged yesterday, everything is different now for companies looking to manage their brands and customer relations.

Dan Lyons, writing as Fake Steve Jobs, called for Operation Chokehold -- a coordinated effort by AT&T users to overwhelm the network with heavy data requests -- at 3 p.m. ET today. Lyons started backpedaling on December 16, perhaps after realizing that Operation Chokehold had become a serious movement, with a Facebook fan page and buzz spreading across social networks, blogs and the news media.

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Download Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Betanews tests with the latest Beta 5 release of Mozilla Firefox 3.6 show some respectable performance improvements, in the race to catch-up to Google Chrome. One of those improvements -- the full impact of which we'll see over time, as Web servers improve their scripting to support it -- is asynchronous scripting. It's a feature added to the HTML 5 standard, and Firefox 3.6 will be the first browser to support it.

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Verizon has filed its response to a December 4 Federal Communications Commission probe which examined the carrier's recent increase to early termination fees for subscribers with "advanced devices" such as BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android and Palm handsets.

The FCC asked why such an increase was necessary, how customers are informed of the new fees, and why the fee is not prorated all the way down to zero.

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Today, Cisco announced that it has completed its acquisition of Starent Networks, a name that has been popping up in greater frequency as wireless networks evolve into their next generation.

Starent deals in core multimedia technology used in all types of mobile radio networks, and has made a strong showing in emerging technologies. Just this year, the company became a partner in Verizon's LTE deployment, it has worked with 3GPP on new Femtocell standards, and launched a

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