A few weeks ago I started playing around with Pandora.  If you're not familiar with Pandora it is a free streaming radio service that lets you build playlist based on your musical tastes.  For example I can put in "Miles Davis" and I get a station that plays a lot of Miles Davis with other similar artists peppered in.  It's a great way to find new music and enjoy a refresh of your favorites.  I like it because it's so quick and easy to use.

There has been one problem so far, I can't use my multimedia keys on my keyboard.  Play, Pause, Next, Previous, etc.  Usually this isn't a huge deal as I just let it play and mute the sound when I get a call or someone comes in.  While that works ok it's not as good as using a real player (sorry did I mention that Pandora is written in Flash so it's browser based).  Along comes OpenPandora to the rescue.

OpenPandora is a small desktop application that wraps itself around the Pandora web interface.  This gives you the ability to run Pandora independently of your browser AND gives you the ability to use the multimedia keys on your keyboard.  Sweet!  So if you're a heavy Pandora user give OpenPandora a try, I think you'll dig it.