Two things caught my eye this week. The first is Spaces, a tool in the new Mac OSX Leopard. This tool has been immediately, extremely helpful in organizing all the crap on my desktop (see below). Now I have a Space (basically, a separate desktop) for whatever project I'm working on at the moment (upper left); and a Space for all those blogs, sites, etc. I need to check out (upper right); a Space for email & chat (lower left) and a Space for Facebook/Twitter, et al.

Each "space" goes full screen. The image here is the Spaces overview, generated by hitting the F8 key. And what's awesome here is that you can quickly see if email, chats and other issues have changed--in other words, you can quickly see if your other spaces (desktops) need attention.

You shuttle through these Spaces using ctrl+arrows or ctrl+1, 2, 3, 4. And you can have more than four Spaces.

It's taken a bit of getting used to, but I feel more productive, more organized.

Thanks, Apple.

Second bit of ingenuity is Black20. (Hat tip to iJustine for the link.)

Here's a broadband content network done the right way. It's got great content. The site is easy to use. It's easy to share. And there's a distinct DNA to the experience. I'd even argue that Black20's show "net_work" is funnier than The Office.

Really well done experience. NBC could learn a thing or two here after taking all their content off iTunes and forcing a lousy, proprietary player on users.

And the story behind the name Black20 is great, too.

Thank you, Black20.

Thank you, Internets.