acedemicgirl,

I use ActiveWords for alot of things, one of which is to open specific folders. You just assign an activeword to a folder, type it in when you need it, and it will come up.

You may not want to spend any money on it. But you can get a 60 day free trial.

In the same vein as Jason, I use SlickRun for about the same thing. I assign a SlickWord to about anything that I want (specific folder, specific app, whatever). Now I have nothing on my desktop except My Computer, Documents, and Network Places and Recycle Bin. It is very helpful in keeping a clean desktop.

Michael

I really don't want to be an operating system troll, but I'd like to point out that the file open/save dialog boxes in Gnome (the standard desktop on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems) do exactly what you want. A screenshot will say more than my description probably can. Basically the left pane of the open dialog box has standard locations (your home directory, your desktop, removable media) and your favourite (bookmarked) folders in it. The save dialog offers you intially only those folders (standard and bookmarked) to save in, but expands to the full browser on request.

TweakUIXP (sorry you'll have to Google it) let's you customize the folders in the places bar (that vertical bar in standard Windows dialogues - Recent, My Docs, My Computer, Desktop, etc). You are limited by bar real estate, but it may be a small solution .... I am trying to find an app I saw once that adds an icon to those dialogues to allow any favorite folder, but I can not find it yet.

Check out TweakUI if you just need a handful of folders

Try this link http://www.friedbeef.com/2006/09/19/how-to-attach-and-save-files-faster/ it describes how to add folders to the sidebar that comes up when you open a file. Hope this helps

With Fast Folders, you simply right click on any Windows Explorer window or Open/Save Dialog box, and your list of FAV shortcuts is right there.

Very handy.

Here's a link: http://www.desksoft.com/FastFolders.htm
It's shareware: 15 USD, just so's you know.

It's one of Microsoft's "Power Toys", fyi, y'all: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx