Since the early days of computing users have been trying to milk more and more out of their systems. After years of evolution, the interface to programs you are running has remained largely the same--if you're on Windows, it's the taskbar. If you're on a Mac with OS X, it's now a dock.

If you're running Linux, you've got your choice. But two out of three of these above mentioned environments has one nifty feature. It's something so simple, so elegantly useful that you may begin to run laps around others who have not picked up on this neat trick.

But hold on, lets go more in-depth into where we came from--where we're going--and then I'll bring you up to speed on today.

There was a time, in the dark and distant past (amidst rubiks cubes and atari joysticks) where the concept of using a device attached to a giant box hooked to a bulky screen named after a rodent was entirely a new concept to the public at large.

In all reality, the idea for this device (called a "mouse") had begun in the mind of one Douglas Englebart, but it passed silently in the days before instant online access and frenzied tweets; nobody ever did a double take when the submission form was sent into the patent office in 1967.

Of course, it didn't say "computer mouse," it had a far fancier name: "x-y position indicator for a display system."

In fact, Douglas was so far ahead of reality when this invention would become main stream by the time the patent protection ran out in 1987 he had not received any royalties.

That's right.

While the Apple Macintosh debuted in 1984, marking the first "consumer" grade computer to utilize such a device, the idea had yet to catch on. Even with a plethora of "me too" graphical interfaces out there for IBM compatibles Windows 3.0 was far and away. While other computing platforms existed nothing was yet at critical mass.

But slowly, users begun clicking. They realized how nifty this mouse thing was--and were happy to throw down a good chunk of change for one if their system had not already come with it.

Life was good because computers didn't generally do much at one time. You were lucky to get it to turn on, open up a few windows, and click on a program to start.

But by the mid-nineties we had cd-rom drives, and we were tired of listening to radios and boom boxes while siting at our desks. It was time to at least write up an article and listen to a few songs, besides dialing up into a bulletin board or checking out that new world wide web thing. Doing all this, while using the built-in calculator and balancing our check books through spread sheets was only making it all more cumbersome.

The screen was getting pretty cluttered with multiple windows, and it showed no signs of slowing down. A new convention to help augment the mouse had to be born.

Amazingly, it's been thirteen years since Microsoft introduced the concept of a "Start Menu."

Instead of having multiple applications and file browsers open on the screen at once, users were now presented with:

• A "Start" button which kept links to applications installed on the computer, not to mention access to commonly used areas (the Control Panel, options to power off, help files, etc.)
• An area where running programs would appear to become easily switchable between tasks.
• And an area with a clock, which would also house small notification icons like access to sound card settings or a quick reference to a dial-up status.

Through each consequent release the Start Menu staid relatively the same, the only major difference between 95 and 98 was a "Quick Launch" panel. This nifty little space right next to the Start button allowed you to "pin" application buttons for a one-click launch of said program.

Over the years, all the way to Windows 7 the taskbar is now a hybrid between this concept and "task grouping" introduced in Windows XP--an often confusing feature that would condense a program's open windows into a list when the taskbar got full.

There's no doubt that a unified approach to the taskbar--a place to both place icons to launch commonly used programs, and having those programs run under one icon makes things much neater.

But, as I mentioned earlier, while this concept dramatically helped users keep track of the programs they were running and switch between them it is not the only way to compute.

In fact, the Windows taskbar still does get cluttered, and even those privy to the use of alt+tab for switching between their programs may begin to feel as if their fingers are getting quite the work out.

The mouse was invented to help users move a pointer on a desktop metaphor, to click on icons that represented applications or documents. Several concepts have been introduced to aid this idea, but it still lays rooted in the earliest days of computing.

Before the concept of multitasking was really seriously possible with the power at the fingertips of the user.

With multiple cores on a processor, massive amounts of memory to run more things at once, and clock speeds inching higher and higher a new convention is taking root by-way of the iPhone and it's predecessors.

The concept you have just witnessed is merely an idea, a conversation starter. So don't go swearing off the mouse just yet, as I'm sure many of you are yet apt to do.

But the "bandwidth" of human-computer interaction has remain unchanged, and the desktop of windows has begun to clutter without recourse.

Is touch technology it's death? Probably not, even with the foundations laid with 10/GUI. In fact, I might call it finished when I get that neural interface. iCranium, I think they'll call it.

But I digress.

The ideas shown in 10/GUI are rather simple. The ability to master it's interface will prove to make computer use vastly more efficient for many, speeding up common tasks.

But there is still one trick available to everyday computer users that has yet to be discussed, a way to change focus in a very simple and effective manner.

What is this, you ask? It's an old idea, actually, the name it's self harking back to 1989 and Solbourne Computer Inc.

It's called Virtual Desktops, and it's usefulness is endless.

Think about everything you may do at your computer at once, and then ponder how best to group these tasks.

In my day-to-day computer use I browse the web utilizing multiple programs; Firefox and Opera being my two favorites.

If I'm browsing my R.S.S. feeds and playing games or writing e-mails on another, I'll generally put them in two different screens. A hotkey is configured (ctrl+alt+ arrow left/right/up/down) to quickly switch between screens.

I'll have a screen dedicated to chat programs, where I'll run Tweetdeck and Pidgin, and if the mood strikes--an IRC client.

And then, even a screen for multimedia--browsing YouTube, listening to music, what not have you.

When I get down and dirty with media creation I'll often have multiple windows geared towards multi-tracking, effects processing, browsing the web for various odd loops, or movie software for cutting out clips to be dropped into a track later.

With virtual desktops the taskbar (or dock, depending) is no longer a problem for me. I'm not worried about keeping track of opened programs, because I've easily learned over time to best map out my work flow and quickly shift gears.

At this point, my computer is no longer a kludge of tasks but a workspace-based system that is intuitively setup (by me) to accomplish many things at once. I'm the slow poke, not the computer who confuses me with it's myriad of software.

If you desire to have this sort of functionality on your Windows-based computer, there are several commercial and non-commercial packages to do such a thing.

Microsoft actually has one it's self, but I prefer to use a light open source implementation called "VirtuaWin," coupled with a module called "VirtuaPlus" which allows you to display different desktop backgrounds and have certain applications start-up when you activate a saved desktop configuration, among other things.

Get VirtuaWin---> Here

Get VirtuaWin Plus--> Here (direct link)

While this is not as snazzy as other commercial implementations (or MacOS Spaces, or the cube affect under my Ubuntu Linux setup) it gets the job done in an efficient manner.

There is one thing to note about this software, however. I've found that if you have an integrated Intel graphics card the hotkeys normally used to switch between desktops (ctrl+alt+arrow) has been pre-assigned to changing your monitor around.

Pretty useful if you've a tablet PC, but for the rest of the 99.9 percent of you, to fix this issue is quite simple:

1. Press Start

2. Select "Control Panel"

3. Double click "Intel Extreme Graphics" icon

5. Select "Hot Keys" tab

6. Uncheck Enable Hot Keys, press apply

Viola!