ive seen programs such as IE7 and OpenOffice 2.0.4 on RC1. what does that mean? i know it stands for Release Candidate 1. but what does it mean? is it still in beta or not really. its not the full verison is it?

Its just another stage before the final release. I'm not sure why lately everything has to go from beta to rc to final release. Used to you just saw maybe one beta and then the final release.

I read somewhere today the final release was suppose to be out by the end of the year. It was a reliable source but I have read about so much today I dont remember who or where I read that. Using RC1 now nice changes working great.

I read somewhere that RC means its very close to a final release and minimal changes if any are predicted to be implemented. In real life it sounds to me that means it is still a Beta.

if it comes out with an RC1 it will probably come out with an RC2 and so forth!

RC is release candidate.
RC is usually more stable than beta version.
Between RC and final version, there are usually no new features, only bugfixes.
The last RC sometimes is the same as the final version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_stage