[juppy]

Jeez, I don't know then. I went Googling and the only other thing I can find that references a white box in the top left corner has to do with people that have an ATI video card and they're using the Catalyst Control Center. Apparently a certain version of that will put a small box up there, but it doesn't say anything about it causing the hourglass to appear or messing up your ability to use other programs. The fix for that problem is disabling the CCC system tray icon, but I doubt that's what you've got going on here.