White box opening and closing on its own?

[corruptsuperspy]

For the past few weeks a white box has been quickly opening and closing by itself in the upper left-hand corner of my screen.

It's very fast, but it appears to be empty. There doesn't seem to be any reason for its appearance and it happens sporadically. I'm usually running Safari, Firefox, iChat, Entourage and iTunes, but it appears even when I have all programs closed. It also happens when I am not connected to the internet.

I'm running OS X 10.3.9.

Does anyone know what this could be and, more importantly, how to get rid of it? My google searches haven't been much help and I feel like an idiot.

Thanks!

[barhar]

01. Launch 'System Preferences' (either from the 'Apple' menu, or '/Applications/' folder).
02. Select the 'Accounts' utility.
03. Click on the 'Startup Items' tab.
04. Reply with all the items listed in the 'Startup Items' list.

[corruptsuperspy]

Startup items:

Microsoft AU Daemon
iTunesHelper
ExpanderDaemon

[barhar]

'Microsoft AU Daemon' exists because in '.../Microsoft Office 2004/'s 'Microsoft AutoUpdate.app' you have the 'Automatically' radio button selected.
'ExpanderDaemon' exists because in 'StuffIt Expander's 'Preferences' you have the 'Automatically expand archives in:' check box check marked.
'iTunesHelper' is for recognizing the iPod.

I do not have an iPod, for me to enable 'iTunesHelper' I opened the 'Package Contents' 'Resources' folder of iTunes (via 'iTunes' 'Get Info' window's ['Command i'] 'Show Package Contents' menu item) to double click on, and thus launch it. Still not white box appearance ... unless it is iPod related (?)

With the above features enabled - I did not see a white box appear. You may want to disable each and determine, if in your situation, either one is the cause of your white box appearance. If not, just re-enable the respective feature.

If the above suggestion fails - then launch 'Activity Monitor' (in the '/Applications/Utilities/' folder), select 'All Processes' from the popup menu, and take and post (here) the snap shots ('Command <shift> 4, then press the spacebar, then click on the 'Activity Monitor' window - will result with 'Picture 1' ... on your 'Desktop) of all the running processes.