Do you use the Recent Items menu in Windows Vista? You may not even know what it is if you haven't poked around some. It is not enabled by default, but if you right-click on the taskbar and select Properties you can configure the way the Start Bar...
Many users may not be aware of this, but in Windows XP and Windows Vista you can actually stretch the taskbar at the bottom of the screen up to gain more real estate. You can make it double or triple its normal height so you can fit more applications...