An anonymous reader writes "Someone posted a technique to find a winner in the iTunes Pepsi promo giveaway." Next step: a Pepsi/iTMS winning number generator!

An anonymous reader writes "99mac.se publishes an internal memo from Steve Jobs to Apple employees today. According to the Memo, Jobs states that "Today is a historic day of sorts for our company." Apple used $300 million in cash to pay off the rest of their debt, and is now a debt-free company. A big turnaround from over $1 billion in debt in mid-1997. Also noted in the memo is that Apple has $4.8 billion in the bank at this time." (Since this is not coming straight from Apple, confirmation -- or debunking -- would be helpful.)

ejungle writes "The Toronto Star has an excellent article on Steve Jobs and his increasingly interesting role as head of both Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios. The article goes into the market pressures surrounding both companies, and goes a long way to explain their recent moves."

NickFitz writes "MacWorld UK has some comments from industry analysts on the question of whether Total Cost of Ownership, Microsoft's favourite metric, is lower for Apple Mac versus Windows. The MS website has no figures to refute the claim that 'An Apple technician may cost twice as much, but he comes to see you half as often.'" Bottom line: neither platform is the clear winner.

An anonymous reader writes "Even though most Linux users have treated Linux as an operating system for their x86 white boxes, Linux runs equally well on PowerPC machines. This article looks at Linux on the PowerPC and the appealing range of PPC machines produced by Apple, where the option of using Linux is of great value to many users."

prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine is optimistic about desktop Linux's future, telling a story of Capital Cardiology Associates, whose 160 employees migrated to Linux desktops. Furthermore, Business Week expects IDC to announce desktop Linux installations to reach 3.2%, for the first time overtaking Macintosh market share. By 2007, IDC forecasts, Linux will be installed on 6% of the desktops. It's also worth mentioning that desktop Linux market share for 2002 was 2.8% and that year it was behind Apple's operating system."

It's the weekend, and it's Friday the 13th (depending on when you read this), so have some fun making your Mac windows unusable and buying copyrighted (and copy-protected!) silence from iTunes Music Store. Read on for details.

ItsMr.Data wants to take a bite out of this issue: "I just got a new PowerBook with Airport. I wish to use it in the wireless network at the university I attend. The problem is that the university uses BlueSocket to secure the WIFI connections. The BlueSocket gateway is configured for IPsec tunnels. The client tool that BlueSocket provides does not work properly under Panther. I was told by the network department that it would be up to me to find a solution until BlueSocket comes out with an updated client. Being a poor college student, I would like to find a cheap or free solution. I have never worked with VPNs or IPsec. Do any Slashdot readers have any good ideas?"

Apple has released GarageBand 1.0.1, which, according to the release notes, "clarifies specific alert dialogs regarding system performance." The update is a 21.5MB disc image. Yes, updating your alert dialogs takes 21.5MB.

Gear_Media writes "Originally posted at PalmInfocenter: 'In a surprise announcement at the developer conference, PalmSource revealed that Palm OS Cobalt will no longer offer synchronization with the Mac. This marks a departure as previous versions of the Palm OS had long shipped with Mac compatible hotsync software.' Smart move? I think not."

Graff writes "Now that Apple has come out with the Xserve G5, Virginia Tech has been swapping out parts of their 'System X' supercomputer for the more compact 1U Xserves. MacMall is selling some of those System X component G5 systems with an approximate $200 savings and an extra 512 megs of RAM over a normal G5. You can read more about it at MacCentral."

whitefael writes "Trolltech is sponsoring a contest in order to increase the number of Qt/Mac applications available and to award the best commercially developed and free Qt-based applications on the Mac. The prize? A screaming Power Mac G5! The top ten will be announced at Apple's World Wide Developer (WWDC) Conference 2004, June 28-July 2. The top two from each category will also receive iPods. Anyone out there interested? You have until May 7, 2004 to enter."

Soroths writes "The DarwinPorts project just achieved a new milestone at crossing the 1000 ports mark in its quest to bring the world of Open Source Software to the Mac OS X platform. Let's give them support and check the main site for more information about the entire project, including how to join!"

saha writes "Thought this article about Apple's Safari contribution back to the open source community may interest some of the readers. KDE adds Safari feel to desktop Linux: The Konqueror Web browser, which shares its basic engine with Apple's Safari, has benefited from Apple's Safari work, KDE said. Konqueror now loads and renders more quickly and has better support for Web standards. One of Apple's major efforts with Safari has been to encourage users to report sites that don't work properly with the browser, in order to improve compatibility."

eMilkshake writes "There is an MS security bulletin that reads, in part, 'A security vulnerability exists ... because of the method by which Virtual PC for Mac creates a temporary file when you run Virtual PC for Mac. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by inserting malicious code into the file which could cause the code to be run with system privileges. This could give the attacker complete control over the system.' Guess VirtualPC really brings the Windows experience to the Mac!" An update is available from the Microsoft site. On the flip side: sking writes "Australian IT reports on Microsoft's continuing development for the Mac: 'I just want to thank Apple for providing all those great innovative technologies that let us do what we love best: creating great applications,' gushed head of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit Roz Ho."

Wired covers the GarageBand revolution. Matt Van Horm writes "MacBand.com is an online directory of songs and loops created by users of Apple's GarageBand software who submit their work. Songs are organized by category and loops are organized by genre, instrument and mood, and are rated with a system similar to the one in iTunes." franklinrh writes in about the free loops available from Access, and others note free loops from Bitshift Audio and Drums on Demand. And if you want to import MIDI files into GarageBand, check out Dent du MIDI. What other software -- and equipment -- are you using with GarageBand? I've got my setup pumping out tunes.

An anonymous reader writes "MacSoft takes popular games and ports them to the Macintosh for all the Mac users to enjoy, but according to a TwinCities.com article, apparently there are far more users pirating Mac Halo than actually buying it A MacSoft spokesman 'didn't release sales figures [for Halo] but said illegal downloads number at least in the hundreds of thousands.'" The article uses this specific game to discuss how PC and Mac publishers are "...making gamers enter special codes, authenticate themselves online and jump through more hoops." It ends by describing the pain of the developer in seeing their title pirated: "It was a dagger in the hearts of guys who worked 12 to 14 hours a day [on Halo]... We're on an emotional high, and it all comes crashing down."

JHromadka writes "Apple and AOL released today new versions of their instant messaging software that allows audio and video conferencing between Mac iChat users and Windows AIM users. " Anyone else think we're nearing the end of the analog phone system?

brasten wants to get to the core of this issue: "I'm in the market for a new development notebook. I would like to jump into the Apple world and pick up a PowerBook. However, compiling very large Java applications of course takes some time, and so raw processing speed is a factor. I have been unable to find solid data on how fast a 1.33GHz PowerBook runs against the modern x86-based notebooks. Does anybody have any information that could help me compare?"

Lane.exe wonders: "So I just got a new Apple Mac G5 (Dual 1.8s, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600, etc) and I was thinking about getting back into some gaming. I was looking over the game selection for Mac, and it's not looking as bright as I'd hoped. But I think this is due more to my ignorance of good games than anything else. What I'm looking for is a few good multiplayer shoot-em-ups (like Quake, UT or Half-Life) and a nicely engrossing RPG. The last few games I've played were Icewind Dale, Pool Of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, and MechWarrior 4. Has anyone got any suggestions along these lines?"