After 2 years and several hundred hours of feeding podcasts into my ears, my Creative Muvo mp3 player broke. Looking for a new one, the new iPod nano with video was one of the options. At first I decided against it because like the iPod Shuffle it requires Apple’s proprietary music player to store files on it, and a powered USB connection to charge it. Several weeks ago I wrote about the iPod Shuffle manager. If something like this would be available for the iPod nano, I might buy one. In fact I found a piece of freeware called Floola. It works like the Shuffle Manager but doesn’t break compatibility with iTunes. So I gave the nano a try. I also bought a USB power adapter, one third the price of Apple’s, that lets me charge it anywhere. No computer USB connection needed, and no iTunes. Nice…. using Apple’s high quality products without getting locked in.