Really digging my undistracted Mac

I know Merlin Mann and Leo Laporte named MacBreak Episode 33 “The Distracted Mac”, but really what Mr. Mann outlines is how to make your Mac less distracting and more productive. I have been playing with this set up for a few weeks now and I have to say I really like it. I have been a big fan of Option-clicking for quite a while (in case you didn’t know, Option-clicking the desktop or a window from an application that is not in the foreground automatically brings that to the front while hiding what had previously been in the front)–I usually have the button under my mouse scroll wheel programmed as an Option-click–but now with Spirited Away, I hardly use that maneuver anymore.

I was chatting with August Trometer a few days ago and urged him to make his Desktopple Pro known to Merlin Mann as this simple shareware app does what Backdrop and MenuShade (from Merlin Mann’s set up) but with no dock icon. And as anyone who keeps his dock on the screen side knows, the only drawback is that the icons are so small that you can’t read the numerical new mail indicator on the Mail icon. So the fewer the icons in the dock, the better.

I discussed my need for fewer dock icons with August and he relayed a little hack that would allow me to alter any application so that it would no longer display a dock icon. Pretty cool. I’ve become quite addicted to this hack (August has promised to write a little tutorial and perhaps an application that will make this hack available to you all). If I could make it so that the Finder had no dock icon, that would be awesome…especially since Merlin has made me a Path Finder convert.