With WordPress 2.7 release date looming as close as ever, the WordPress team has released the 2.7 Release Candidate 1. RC1 ushers in the final leg of development for 2.7. RC1 contains 280 commits since beta 3, includes the new and polished UI everyone’s excited for, plus the icon set that won in ProjectIcon. And the new login page looks good too.

While we self-hosted WordPress users impatiently wait for the final 2.7 build to come out, the lucky guys on WordPress.com will be getting 2.7 on December 4 at 8pm Eastern Time. That’s 5pm Thursday in California, 1am Friday in London (UTC), 8am Friday in Jakarta, noon on Friday in Sydney. If you’re not too sure about your timezone, you can check it out here.

If you want to test it out, you can download RC1 here. Make sure to backup your blog first before you upgrade.

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