I’m pretty keen on my privacy and don’t like it when my boss creeps up on me. Is there any way I can hide all my applications except the one I’m supposed to be working on at the touch of a button?

There are a variety of applications around that can help you with something like that, but the one I particularly like is called Magic Boss Key. It’s a free application that can hide all your applications at the press of a key.

It actually does one better, when you start it up, it shows you a list of what’s running at the point in time. You can specify whether you want all windows to be hidden, or whether there are any particular applications what you want to leave running on your desktop. For example, if you’re using your browser to search for information on hoodia and other diet pills, and have Excel running at the same time; you can choose that your browser is hidden, but Excel remains up on your screen. That’s a quick way to make sure your boss sees what he wants to see.