Depending on the application that is running when I open the dash it is sometimes nearly impossible to read the icons due to the transparency of the dash background. Is there a way to change the transparency?
Unity Dash – How to Change Dash Transparency
transparencyunityunity-dash
Related Solutions
For Ubuntu 11.10
The solution depends on whether you are using the standard or 2D version of Ubuntu, which depends on your graphics card. (See: Am I using Unity or Unity 2D? )
Resizing the Dash in the standard Ubuntu
When opening the Ubuntu Dash, you should see three "window buttons" in the upper-left. Click the maximize button (the square) to switch between fullscreen and windowed mode.
Resizing the Dash in Ubuntu 2D
Install and launch Dconf Editor 
. Once it's open, navigate to the desktop > unity section in the left pane. You will see a form-factor option, which if set to 'Netbook' will made the Dash fullscreen, and if set to 'Desktop' will make the Dash windowed.
What about drag-resizing the Dash, like a Window?
There are many unconfigurable parts of Unity, and this is one of them. The Dash has two modes (fullscreen and windowed) and you can switch between them using the methods above. You can't drag-resize the Dash.
In defense of Unity's design, though, there's no reason you'd want to resize the Unity Dash to arbitrary dimensions on the fly. You don't "drag and drop icons [from the desktop to the Dash] in order to create shortcuts", as the question asker mentioned; that's what the launcher is for. The Dash is designed to be the sole focus on your desktop when you use it.
(In response to David's comment I offer this answer as a possible solution, as it worked for David and me with recent versions of Xfce.)
In Xfce, you can go to settings > settings manager > window manager tweaks and switch off the compositor, which manages transparency and the overlaying of X windows. You can do it via the command-line with xfconf-query:
xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s false
That should give you back pseudo-transparency, as long as you are not running any other compositors and only the standard Xfce window manager. With compositing on I had full 'real' transparency with guake and with it off I had the old style 'pseudo' transparency.
You will also have to restart guake to see any difference. This is about the only way to do it I think, as there won't be any settings in guake itself as it is highly dependent on your own customised setup and whether you have compositing enabled in xfwm4 or in whichever window manager you are using on your setup.
Best Answer
If you choose the "Static blur" option the the Dash blur is set the 1st time you use the Dash per session.
So if you open the Dash over an appropriate background then that's what you'll get for the rest of the session, what you then open the Dash over won't matter
For a short time in 11.10 the "No Blur"; option used to provide a dark,solid dash, that's fallen by the wayside & no blur is pretty much worthless
Can be adjusted in the
unity plugin > experimental settingsin ccsmIf ccsm, (compizconfig-settings-manager) is installed & you wish to go directly to the unity settings then
Alt+F2, type inabout:configand hit Enter.It can also be set from terminal,
0=no blur,1=static blur,2=active blur(the defaultOpen a terminal and type the below command