Give Windows 7 a quick shake

Do you ever suffer from window clutter, as in having so many applications running on your desktop that you can't focus on the one you want? Manually closing all those windows is tedious, but Windows 7 has a quick and fun way to minimize all windows to the taskbar except the one you wish to keep on top.

Simply click and hold the title bar of the windows that you want to work with, and shake it slightly left-to-right. Yes, SHAKE IT. All the other windows will drop down to the taskbar ready for you to grab and work with, leaving your current window the sole occupant of your desktop real estate. To restore the other windows, just shake the title bar again. (Note this requires a Windows Aero theme to be turned on, several of which are found under the "Personalize" menu when you right-click on your desktop background.)

Windows Explorer - view settings for consistent behavior

Ever wondered how you could set an Explorer window to always display the way you want - even after logging off and back on? Wonder how you could set that for every Explorer window you open? It can be annoying to have to constantly change the settings every time you look at your files and folders. However, setting a permanent preference for Explorer windows is not difficult.

First, set your preferred view in a given Explorer window using the View menu (pick from List, Detail, Icons, etc.), then make windows Explorer apply them to all folders by using the Tools-Folder Options menu. Here is a link with screenshots that shows you how to do this using Windows XP. The process is very similar for Windows 7. (Hint: in Windows 7, if your menu bar is hidden and you can't see any menus, press the Alt key on your keyboard, which will temporarily make the menu bar display itself.)