To disable a strip at the bottom, you'd use synclient AreaBottomEdge=xxx, where xxx is a number which is less then the vertical width of the touchpad.
For example, on my Dell mini 10 (1010) with an Elantech touchpad, I had to use the following:
synclient AreaBottomEdge=690
...while the touchpad dimentions are:
~$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep range
[ 24.008] (--) synaptics: ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad: x-axis range 0 - 1152
[ 24.008] (--) synaptics: ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad: y-axis range 0 - 768
You can use AreaLeftEdge, AreaRightEdge and AreaTopEdge options in a similar manner, if needed.
To make the change permanent, I had to create /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the folloing content:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad"
MatchProduct "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "AreaBottomEdge" "690"
Option "AreaRightEdge" "1070"
Option "AreaLeftEdge" "110"
EndSection
PS: You can find out how your Mini 10v's touchpad is identified by looking at the Xorg log info -
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep touch.