Beef up Quick Launch

A lot of people use the desktop to create shortcuts to programs they use a lot, to drop files on, and even create folders on. The major problem with this approach is that with normal use you soon get a very cluttered desktop.
A solution is to power up the Quick Launch feature of the Task Bar at the bottom of your screen. If the Quick Launch toolbar is not there, turn it on by right clicking in a clear space on the Taskbar and choosing Quick Launch from the menu. This should make the Quick Launch toolbar visible to the right of the Start button.
When you instal software, it frequently adds a shortcut icon to Quick Launch. If not, simply drag the program's icon down to the Task Bar, between one of the icons already showing. (This puts a copy of the shortcut onto the bar, so you can delete the other from the desktop.)
To the right of the program icons, you will see a double chevron >> and then a vertical row of dots. You can drag this row to shorten or lengthen the queue of items visible on the Task Bar.
Clicking on the chevron will expand the Quick Launch bar, and single clicking on an icon will launch that program. If you click and drag an icon, you can rearrange its position, which is useful to group like progams.
But if, like me, you have far too many items for comfort, you can create folders for different categories, and then when you select a folder, it will pop out a sub-menu. To do this, right click just after the furthest right item in Quick Launch, and select the "Open Folder" entry in the menu. (Try to click just before the >> symbol.)
Now, just create folders in the usual way, and drop icons into them. Note that the folders appear in the Quick Launch menu in order you created them. But don't worry, you can reorder the folders (sub menu entries) in the Quick Launch menu.
Wtih this approach, you can shorten the number of items showing on your Task Bar (I usually just have my most-used programs showing, such as Firefox, Thunderbird and Word).