Launchy

Launchy is a great little program that can save you lots of time searching for programs or files on your computer. It indexes any kind of file you want to be able to run and with 5 keystrokes you can load not only your favourite program but the file you want to work with. By default you press 'Alt'+ the spacebar to open the launch window, the start typing the name of the program or file and it will bring up a series of possibilities. Once you make a selection it will use that pick as the first in the list next time around. I can load my spreadsheet in Open Office for Northwood scoring stats by hitting the alt-space combo and typing 'sco' in the window, hit enter and everything launches. Otherwise your desktop is covered in shortcuts. Sometimes for the life of me I can't find the shortcut I want or I'm clicking through directories trying to find the file I want. It takes a few minutes to set it up to index your drive but after that even web pages you frequent can be loaded with a few keystrokes.  

It can do a few other tricks as well. It has a built in calculator, can be used to find and play an mp3 file with your default player or load a picture.