creating custom keyboard shortcuts

I am the same way about desktop icons but have never found anything but the general shortcuts.
For just Windows Explorer of course you always have "Windows key + e".
As for program and website shortcuts there are many brands of keyboards now that have hot-keys that you can program to your specifications. This way my way of taking care of that little annoyance.

Did you do a search on google? I seem to remember looking for something like that but I cant remember how to do it or where to find it. Good luck!

There are probably programs out there that allow you to define custom key commands. A very nice one, Keyboard Launchpad, is a new additon to Stardock's Object Desktop.
[Message Edited]

if you have desktop icons, then windows already has this option. go to the properties of the desktop shortcut, and set the shortcut key there

however, for reasons best known to Microsoft it seems to require a reboot to make these shortcut keys work.

for Stardock program users:
a) use Keyboard Launchpad, as Chris said. since this is beta, you will need to set Stardock Central to show all components.

you can set up shortcuts in ObjectBar. so, have a shortcut to the program (item, etc) you want in OB, and then give it a shortcut key.

having tried all three, plus a couple of other keyboard shortcut programs, my preferred solution is Keyboard Launchpad. easy, simple, and since i already have OD, it doesn't cost anything

You can use litestep, it support custom shortcuts