See pic for explanation. Has this ever happened to anyone? I find it quite amusing/scary at the same time. My Mac has been acting up lately.
No hacks except for the screen spanner which I'm not using and have only used once. I don't think that would cause any troubles. I did install and run the Mac Janitor today but I don't think that's the cause either. God this is driving me nuts. Just yesterday the letters would not appear when I ran the pointer across the icons, now the Finder decides it wants out. ARGGGH why can't it "just work".
Is this still installed? If so, remove it. Also, try to delete your dock prefs (com.apple.dock.plist) file and reboot. You will need to rebuild your dock afterward, I think.
Mine did this once; no hacks at all on it... I just logged off and on again and ta da, it fixed itself and has never done it again.
This used to happen to me a lot. I would have the dock at the bottom and hidden. Sometimes I'd call up the dock select a program, but when the dock disappeared again it left the finder icon behind. I have shapeshifter installed but no dock hacks. It has stopped happening since I moved to tiger from panther and moved the dock to the right side.