In case you missed it the first time, the "Cola Wars" went digital during the 2004 Superbowl. iTunes and Pepsi joined up to give away 100 millions dollars worth of free music from iTunes. All you had to do was buy a bottle of Pepsi and look under the cap. Well they are doing it again! Starting February 2005, 1 in 3 bottles of Pepsi will give you a special free song code to redeem at the iTunes Music Store.

1 in 3 is pretty good odds, but everyone remembers the "look under the cap trick" from 2004. And back then not everyone had an iPod or knew what iTunes was, now it's a different story. I just tried to buy a Pepsi bottle with a winning cap and couldn't. I looked under the cap of about 20 bottles before giving up. If you can find a fresh shipment of Pepsi bottles, here's a low-tech hack to help increase your odds of winning.

TAKING A PEEK Looking under the cap really isn't that hard. But there's a little trick to it. Find a bottle of Pepsi with a yellow cap. At the time of the 2004 promotion, Coke was trying to confuse consumers and added a yellow cap to their bottles as well. Look for an Apple Computer logo on the Pepsi label with some text explaining the iTunes promotion. Bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Wild Cherry, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew Code Red and Sierra Mist too!!! (Pepsi owns Sierra Mist and Mountain Dew). Place your nose to the bottom of the label on the Pepsi bottle. Slowly tilt the bottle back until you can see under the cap. It takes about 5-30 seconds to get the angle right. Tilt and rotate the bottle while carefully while looking under the cap. You are looking for either "SORRY TRY AGAIN" or "XXXXX XXXXX FREE SONG" (the X's are the 10 digit winning code). The words "Again" and "Song" are pretty easy to spot. A little bit of patience will pay off. During the first promotion I had a 100% winning record and drank Pepsi everyday at lunch for months. My desk was covered in yellow caps. Buy your winning bottle, drink the soda and redeem your code. Once you have the winning cap in your hands, sit down in front of a computer with iTunes installed and an internet connection. On the iTunes front page is a Pepsi logo that says redeem song. Click on this and type in your code. You should now have a song credit listed in your iTunes account bar with any other money you have linked to your account.

Tips For Success

• When you go to the store, grab the Pepsi bottles from the back of the refrigerator. A lot of people know about this "look under the cap" trick and 9 out of 10 times the bottles up front all losers.

• Condensation is your enemy! Hold your breath while looking under the cap or you might fog up the bottle making it hard to see. Also if the humidity is high, the outside of your Pepsi bottle might steam up. Wipe away the condensation and quickly peak again.

• Try to buy the Pepsi bottles from small Mom and Pop stores. They usually don't mind if you dig through their refrigerators and might even curious and ask you to teach them the trick. Bigger chains might send over the manager and kick you out. It happened to me at 7-11.

Pepsi promotion winners can only claim up to 10 songs per day and 200 tunes total during the giveaway, which ends 4/11/05. Once the codes were entered into the iTunes Music Store, users have until 5/23/05 to use their free songs.

The Pepsi/iTunes promotion ends April 11, 2005. Find those winning bottles while they last.