Slashback is back after a long absence being devoured by gnomes. Read on below for updates on past Slashdot stories about the continuing Washington election brouhaha, the FBI's latest hunt for server logs, Photoshoppified GIMP, and more.

CmdrStone writes "Just thought I'd post to let people know that while at FOSE today in the Washington, D.C. Convention center I lingered at the Apple pavilion / booth. To my surprise every machine had 10.4 running. The build number matches the build number found on the rumor sites; 8A428. Does this presage Tiger hitting the shelves soon? Personally, my main interest was how much iSync was expanded to support more devices, phones, etc. The Apple rep confirmed that the number of devices has expanded. He lamented that his Symbian phone, the Nokia 9500 Communicator, still was not included in the supported phones. He did tell me that he was able to tether his Powerbook and get online via his 9500's T-Mobile connection."

aberkvam writes "MacWorld is reporting that CherryOS is "On Hold - until further notice." Does this mean that they are going to confirm that they used PearPC's code or is this just a delaying tactic due to the potentially pending lawsuit? Slashdot has covered this saga before."

Dirty Screen Boy writes "Over time, your LCD or CRT monitor will gradually fade in brightness and contrast. This fading is inevitable, because the backlights for LCD screens eventually fade, and the photo-reactive substrate on CRT monitors eventually degrades. ScreenCleaner Pro rectifies this situation by altering the gamma of your monitor to compensate for monitor degradation, so it will look as good as new. Don't toss out that old monitor, just run ScreenCleaner Pro on it, and watch your old monitor gain a new life. Simply let ScreenCleaner Pro run in the background, and it will automatically analyze your monitor's gamma curve and relative luminescence. After enough calibration data has been collected, ScreenCleaner Pro will adjust your monitor to like-new condition. The analyzation/calibration process can take up to 10 minutes, but you can work normally while ScreenCleaner Pro is analyzing your monitor; simply let it run in the background."

Suhas writes "Early Friday morning, the Japanese web site of Apple Computer briefly hosted pages depicting an previously unannounced iPod peripheral called "iPotty" (JPY 104,970, approx. $1000), a beige-and-white electric toilet seat featuring an integrated iPod dock on its right side. Presumably intended only for the domestic Japanese marketplace, iPotty promises to deliver music playback and an "optional scent eliminator" to drown out embarrassing bathroom sounds and smells. Availability is listed at 1-3 weeks, indicating an imminent release."

sebFlyte writes "silicon.com is reporting on a new twist on some oft-done probability research, into the suggestion that an infinite number of monkeys will eventually produce a perfect script for Hamlet , given typewriters (or indeed keyboards) and enough time. The researchers claims that the monkeys used in their test preferred using systems running Windows XP to those running Mac OS X. Which begs the question -- do only monkeys use Windows, or can even monkeys tell Macs aren't worth bothering with?"

RLewis1241 writes "According to The Register, Steve Jobs seems to be broadening his horizons: "IKEA will employ Jobs as "acting CEO", from next month. The technology icon will maintain his twin CEO roles at Apple Computer Inc. and Pixar Inc. but will also take command with a wide-ranging brief at the retail giant""

ack154 writes "As the article says, 'If you can't beat them, hire them.' TechTree.com is reporting that Apple has recently hired DVD Jon. I guess Apple has had enough cracks of their iTunes program and have decided to stop it at the source. And give the source a job."

Isao writes "Not paying any attention to the date, Apple has available the next must-have iPod accessory. Not headphones, not a remote, not even video. It's... socks. For the undressed iPod, a collection of socks, color-coordinated for any and every occasion. Be the envy of the sockless ones for a mere $29.95 (for six). No, really."

John Leger writes "Despite legal challenges faced by the rumor sites, The Apple Blog today is releasing what appear to be exclusive early concept models of Apple products." Interesting concept, and features a large disk drive, ipod dock, and wireless connectivity.

varmittang writes "Tiger Woods has signed a long-term deal with Apple Computers as Mac OS X 'Tiger' spokesperson. He's apparently trying to align himself with the 'best brands' in each market, and Apple just seemed like the right pick." From the article: "Tiger Woods and Apple Computer is the perfect marriage, with both of us striving to be the best. With OS X, Apple is the industry innovator in operating systems and our 'Tiger+Tiger' partnership help tell the world about the benefits of using Mac OS X...Others are now following OS X's taillights, and 'Tiger+Tiger' will make it even harder for them to ever catch up."

Oculus Habent writes "In an attempt to increase Apple's market share in the home sector, Steve Jobs announced today that he would personally fund prizes for ports of popular gaming titles to the Macintosh platform. Citing the common complaint of lack of game availability for Mac OS X, Jobs suggests that work in this area could seriously improve Macintosh acceptance. Said Jobs, "We've got incredible, stylish computers and an insanely great operating system. The Mac mini made has a huge impact, but it is only the tip of the iceberg." Prizes include Steve's yearly salary for the first ten ports, and twice that amount for "hot new titles" with a simultaneous release." Update: 04/02 18:02 GMT by Z : April 1st hoax story.

Ohreally_factor writes "Peter Seebach has written a paper over at IBM developerWorks on the potential use of the Mac mini as a high-end embedded development board. Quote from the article: 'Comparing it to other embedded systems, you'll find that it's not much bigger, and it's smaller than some. It has a broader array of connectors, a faster processor, support for a very large amount of memory, and comes with self-hosted development tools. In short, if you look at it as an embedded development platform, it's a competitive one.'"

Orangez writes "Apppleinsider.com reports that 'Tiger' reaches the final candidate stage. 'With massive software projects such as Tiger, Apple will sometimes seed several final candidate builds before one is declared gold master...'" The final release has widely been speculated to be in the next month or two.

An anonymous reader writes "The folks over at iPodlounge just released the 2005 edition of their buyers guide. The 10MB 100-page guide can be downloaded here."

Ben Gutierrez writes "Paul Graham has posted a new essay on the Return of the Mac which begins with: 'All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.' Tim O'Reilly said some similar things in Watching Alpha Geeks . From the article: "My friend Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves Powerbooks. These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get."

pinqkandi writes "Business 2.0 is running a fascinating article on what might be coming up in Apple's future. Besides speculation, some interesting statistics are included, such as how the iPod should create equal revenue to the Mac for Apple in 2006, if not surpassing it. A good read for the Apple lover or loather."

Bill Hamm writes "DB is carrying a deep interview with Jonathan Rentzsch, who created an open source technology to allow other developers to inject their code into any running process to alter its functions and written papers for IBM to program the PowerPC correctly. The interview is huge and technical, and all over the place in terms of content. Some of the things discussed are the reasons for corporate America's resistance to buying from Apple, software optimization, the importance and history of 10.4's Core Data, why WebObjects is no longer relevant, the status of PowerPC compilers, and why Mac OS X's Finder should be killed off."

AnamanFan writes "Many years ago an easter egg was uncovered on the MacOS System 7.1 CD included with the Quadra 660av and 840av machines. A 91mb MOV file shows the Cyclone/Tempest team celebrating with a nice pirate flag in the background. Don't have your old System 7.1 CD from your Quadra? It's now available online, or if you'd like to you're welcome to use the Torrent."

Mordant writes "Some experienced Mac developers are offering a $25K prize to the first person to successfully infect two 'naked' Internet-connected Macs running stock Apple software. The best part is that if any Symantec employee succeeds in infecting the Macs, the prize goes up to $50K (Symantec has been fanning the flames of totally bogus "Macs aren't more secure, it's just that Windows is a bigger target" technical-equivalence propaganda)!" Update: 03/26 20:24 GMT by Z : Well, that was quick. Jack Campbell has cancelled the contest, after he "...was contacted by a large number of Mac users, and Mac software professionals who shared their thinking with me about the contest."