First off, I'm an idiot.

I can concede that point, especially since I flew from Washington, D.C. to Providence without packing my iPhone's sync cable or charger.

The actual sync cable and charger, I think they're lying in a chair next to my Mac Pro. Not in my bag. In the chair.

When my iPhone began to run low on battery life, I ransacked my luggage looking for the cable and charger. Coming up short, I looked at the old Firewire cable used to charge my third generation iPod and hoped for the best.

Oddly enough, it works.

Let's be clear about this: It won't sync your iPhone to your Mac, but it WILL carry a current to the device, allowing the battery to charge. Simply plug the cable into the iPhone, then either plug it to an old iPod wall charger or Firewire port and the iPhone will read as if it's charging normally on its screen. The only difference is that it never syncs with iTunes at any point in time.

This may not be everything you're looking for, but if you're in a hurry or just discovered you didn't pack everything you thought you did, it'll work and keep your iPhone going, which tends to be what matters, especially on the road.

If you've found any cool tricks or workarounds like this, let us know over in the comments or forums.