SuSE 9.1 and those damn "balloons"

Anyone know how to get rid of, or at least minimise their display time, the description "balloons" which come up when the cursor is hovered over the set of icons on bottom RH of the taskbar? The "balloon(s)" come up, cover the icon, won't go away for ages, and the icon can't be clicked to activate because the "balloon(s)" is/are covering it/them. (Suse v 7.1 is looking good at this point in time.) Cheers. -- I am not young enough to know everything.