Great post.. best part is about asking that crazy good developer in your office. Every coder that I have some respect for has a very nicely defined way of doing things with their uniquely setup tools and it works wonders for them. For me one of these things was using the fluxbox window manager in my gentoo setup. My *nix-happy dormitory hallmate showed it to me during my freshman year of college. Holy root menu shit. Right-click the desktop and any number of applications could be easily launched. Right-click, Terminal, left-click. BAM! Right-click, Firefox, left-click (or arrow keys & return in your case). BAM!