The Pros and Cons of iPodding

Okay, so Apple scored some major points yesterday. I'm still learning how to use my iPod, and the first thing I tried was the massive shuffling of all 1,800 or so songs I've been able to load up on to the device.

As I was doing this, I thought to myself "how cool would it be if it could shuffle albums, instead of tracks, so you get all the tracks from an album selected randomly?" Turns out they've already thought of it. This makes for a happy listener, to be sure.

There are still things I need to figure out, and as I rip more CDs I'm going to need to manage the syncing process more closely. I like having the Creedence Clearwater Revival box set on my computer, for instance, but I don't think I need it to be portable, and that would free up a lot of room for other stuff.

Anyway, if you've got other iPod tips and tricks, feel free to post comments. I'd love to be able to program the "next" track while it's playing -- sort of building a playlist or a queue on the fly. I think you can do playlists, but I only thought I saw that in passing while I was troubleshooting some other stuff.