Windows 7 Explorer Shortcuts

Hi all, this is my first time posting on Majorgeeks.com!

I have a quick question about a couple of W7 shortcuts. It seems like the keyboard shortcuts in this OS are a bit more comprehensive than in previous versions, but there's a couple of things that I'd like to do...and haven't been able to figure out yet:

1. Is there any way to deselect a folder or document using the keyboard? I've seen "CTRL+Space" listed, but that shortcut doesn't seem to work for me. The reason that I would like to be able to do this is, for example, to be able to quickly hit "Shift+F10" to 'right-click', and then press "w+t" to create a new text document. However, if I do that with a document already selected, I will simply get the right-click menu for that folder or document.

2. It's nice that W7 has changed the taskbar to a more 'MMO style' system where you can simply press "Start+1", "Start+2"...etc to launch programs and manage minimization/maximization, but...where are the numbers? I don't like counting to 9 every time I'm trying to open a window. Is there a third-party application that I can use to place a sequential number on each window in the taskbar?

Thanks! I apologize in advance if I'm posting in the wrong forum for this message.