In Pages ’09, I love working with my documents in full-screen mode. It prevents me from getting distracted from other windows in the background. How can I get my other applications to display their documents in full-screen mode as well?

Mac OS X does not provide a system-wide option to view your documents in full screen, so you’ll first want to check each specific application to see if it gives you a full-screen option.

After that, you may want to try Spaces (part of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard), which gives focus to only the windows that you want to see at any given time. However, Spaces doesn’t obscure your files on the Desktop, so you might still see a bunch of clutter in the background. To completely hide your Desktop, you can use an application like Desktop Curtain (donationware, www.manytricks.com) or Desktopple Basic (donationware, www.foggynoggin.com).

Think brings full-screen functionality to any application on your Mac.

Another easy way to view your documents in full-screen mode would be to use the program Think (free, www.freeverse.com). Think will dim everything in the background except the application that you want to see.
 
Oh, and one additional note worth mentioning: If you’re only interested in viewing websites in full-screen mode, you can use the Saft plug-in for Safari ($12, haoli.dnsalias.com) or Fluid (free, www.fluidapp.com), mentioned here.

Saft adds Full Screen as a menu item in Safari, among other useful options.