If you run a Web site, create training manuals or do something that requires you to take and use screenshots a lot, one thing you probably find yourself doing is hiding certain windows and moving icons on your desktop out of the way. It's a royal pain in the behind.

There are plenty of screenshot applications out there, but few if any of them will actually do the cleanup work mentioned above. Thankfully, there are several applications available that will hide icons on the desktop, such as Camouflage, Desktopple, or Desktop Curtain. Or you could even use Apple's built-in Spaces feature to switch to an empty desktop. The problem is, none of those apps will hide icons AND windows with ease.

Enter Isolator. This tiny little app, with a tiny little icon (seen at right) lives in your menu bar for easy access and packs a powerful punch. When activated either by clicking the menu bar icon or user designated hotkey, Isolator will cover up your desktop and all the icons on it, as well as the windows of all your other applications except the one you have active.

Isolator also gives you the added feature of switching the photo of your kids with a nice clean color of your choosing as the desktop photo, and allows you to adjust the opacity of the color as well — allowing a hint of other windows and icons to show through if you choose. The ability to choose the color of the desktop is great because you can choose white to avoid having to clip out backgrounds to simplify your screenshots.

Because Isolator hides both icons and application windows, I find it to be the very best at what it does, with the most flexibility.

Version 1.0 of Isolator works with OSX Tiger only, but the latest beta version 1.5b4 works perfectly under OSX Leopard. Isolator is free, but donations are appreciated.