Cleaning up desktop clutter

If you're like me, then you've got a desktop cluttered with files, some of them for business, some for pleasure, and some of them just crap. Not only is my desktop cluttered with files but its also contains 1000+ folders in which more documents are sorted and stored. The problem is, I can never remember exactly where I put something and when I do, I have to go through 5 to 6 levels of folders just to find it.

I came across a video on YouTube of a prototype 3D computer desktop environment. This 6+ minute video covers a bunch of innovative features that allow you to interact and organize your desktop clutter like you would clutter on a real desk.

The group who has put together this demo is called Dynamic Graphic Project (DGP) and some of the cool features include Pile Creation, Laso Menu, and Pile Manipulation. The amazing part is that you can create piles of documents just like you would on your real desk. The piles contain similar documents and allow you to keep groups of objects all on a single desktop. To make it easier to organize and access files, piles can be manipulated by widgets that display the contents of the files in a variety of ways (grid, list, fanned out, sideways, etc.).

The file icons can also be chosen to show the contents of the file. So links to webpages contain snapshots of the pages contents. Links that I save from websites are a big problem because often the name isn't indicative of the contents and filenames can get excessively long.

For right now the video is just a demonstration of what is possible and it may be a while before any of these features make it into a real operating system. But the work they have done so far is certainly innovative.