How do you turn off the notification box?

Press Menu
Settings
Sound Profiles
Normal
Set the combobox in the upper right to Message
Change Message alert repetition to "Once" instead of "Periodic".

This means if you don't hear the alert tone that you'll miss knowing that you have a message until you make the phone's screen turn on.  My phone's default was "Once", but I like the "Periodic" setting better; although I would like to be able to set how often the periodic alert tone/vibrate happens. I think it's a little too frequent.