Add dead region touchpad

You could try using a combination of something like the following to disable strips on the sides, top and bottom of the touchpad.

synclient AreaLeftEdge=w AreaRightEdge=x AreaTopEdge=y AreaBottomEdge=z

To figure out what w,x,y and z would be, you'll need to know the range, or boundaries of the touchpad, which might show in the Xorg log, as in my case. I don't have a Macbook, but an example will do to illustrate the method.

To find out the touchpad boundaries, run less /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -i range. Here is the output I get:

(II) ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad: x-axis range 8 - 1144
(II) ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad: y-axis range 8 - 760

UPDATE:

If for some reason, the above command no longer works because Xorg.0.log has changed location, you would also be able to get edge coordinates from synclient directly.

synclient

gives:

LeftEdge                = 8
RightEdge               = 1144
TopEdge                 = 8
BottomEdge              = 760

UPDATE-END

Now, to disable strips on both sides and at the bottom, I've added the following to autostart applications:

synclient AreaLeftEdge=50 AreaRightEdge=1100 AreaBottomEdge=670

It took some trial and error to adjust the widths to comfortable levels, so you might what to experiment in a terminal window first, before adding it to autostart. The changes are applied instantly.