There's nothing more annoying or distracting than trying to work with annoying noise in the background. You're chugging along nicely, with your favorite radio station playing low; then suddenly, you're jolted from concentration by a stupid tune you hate or loud commercial. Grrr. You can avoid this by loading your iPod with your favorite tunes and listen to them over and over; or, you can hear music you like, including artists and songs you might not even know you'd like, by tuning into Pandora.com and creating your own "radio" station--or two--or more. It's FREE!

Test Pandora by typing the name of your favorite artist or song. Pandora then searches its huge library, and finds and plays a continuous stream of additional songs, by various artists, that are similar to the one you chose.

Pandora displays artist/song/album information on each song as it plays; so, if you hear something you really like, you can find and buy the CD. Click on the song bubble for direct links to iTunes and Amazon Music.

Don't like one of the selections? Click the Guide Us button and say so. Pandora removes that song from your "station." You can also click on the song bubble to give a song a quick thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating.

Sick of hearing a song? Use Guide Us to say so, and Pandora will stop playing that song on your station for a month.

Want more variety? Click on your station to Add Music and enter more artists or songs to your list.

Got different moods? Create another station. You can create up to 100 stations, with whatever artists and songs you like to hear together. You can even Rename your stations.

Want to listen longer? Register. It's Free -- as long as you're willing to tolerate a few visual ads on the screen and occasional audio ads.

I'm probably one of the few telecommuters who doesn't own an iPod; so, Pandora is perfect for me. I also like the way it assembles a stream of songs based on my choices. I've only nixed one song so far; and, I've discovered many "new" artists I like that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

Try it! You'll probably increase your productivity, reduce stress, and put an end to annoying audio distractions!