The tweakui tool was very useful, because it gave me the ability
to turn off the annoying balloon popups that tell me all kinds
of things I already know and don't need to be told twice :-).

Unfortunately, just because the ballons are turned off, doesn't
mean the %$#@ taskbar remainds hidden. I have it hidden by default,
and I want it to stay hidden till I want to look at it by moving
the mouse to the edge. Is there any way to make Windows less helpful
so the taskbar never ever unhides till I say so?

Some examples of annoying behavior:

If Windows decides (almost always incorrectly) that some other
window wants the focus, it unhides the taskbar so it can blink
the task button at me.

And if some application (the APC tray icon app that talks to my
UPS is a good example) decides to notify me that the lights which
just blinked on and off were a power failure (duh), then it tries
to popup a balloon tip, which also unhides the taskbar (doubly
irritating because the balloon itself is suppressed).

If I could make it hide again by just clicking in some other app,
it might not be too bad, but that doesn't work. It insists on
staying unhidden till I respond to whatever bugged it (which can
be hard to do when you can't tell because balloons are turned off).