FC3 + Gnome, cant seem to create links on desktop

[RedHat123]

I seem to be having problems making links on the desktop. I right-clicked the desktop and chose 'create launcher', filled ou the details, for example to launch Gedit, but nothing was added to the desktop, however, a 'gedit.Desktop' was added to my home/Desktop folder. Same thing for a soft link i added to a file with ln -s file_source file_link_name

why would things not be showing on the desktop ?