How to turn off Dashboard

The Dashboard is a handy feature of OS X to keep information flakes and small tools at the ready.

To turn Dashboard off, run the following command from the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean yes

To turn Dashboard on:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean no

Because Dashboard is a component of the Dock, you need to restart the Dock after making either change:

killall -1 Dock