Pandora is great and all, but sometimes I want to listen to EXACTLY the songs I want, right now. Since I still refuse to purchase an iPhone (mainly because I don't want to pay AT&T $30 a month for a stinkin' iPhone data plan), I bring my 2nd generation iPod Nano to work with me. I also bring my USB cable with me, but not the AC power adapter that goes with it. If the battery was low, I just plugged my iPod into my work PC using the USB cable and fired up Pandora while my iPod flashed ye olde "Do not disconnect" warning at me. Now before some ding-dong out there yells, "Why didn't you just use iTunes?", let me say something one more time: this is my work PC - I cannot install iTunes on it.



Well, that was true until today. I finally stumbled across a forum where someone answered the very question I had: how do I listen to my iPod while charging it via the USB cable on a PC? Someone slightly smarter than myself suggested that I open Windows Explorer, right-click on the disk icon representing my iPod and select "Eject". Wow, it worked! Apparently this is different than doing the "Safely remove hardware..." option that I'd been using before. Go figure.

So now here I am, music a-playin' and my iPod a-chargin'. Hope this tip helps someone else out there.