Check marks and question marks all over my icons

Hello!
Sometime in the last few days I've noticed that a bunch of the icons in my Finder have strange little question marks and check marks on them. I first noticed a check mark on the icon for the hard drive, but when I looked closer they turned out to be everywhere! here's a screen shot of what they look like:
http://www.theamazingrolo.net/marks.jpg
(i just took a screenshot of the info windows to make it more clear, but the marks can be seen in any finder window)
What on earth are they about?! Any ideas? They kind of bug me, to be honest.
Thanks!
Yann
(white Macbook running 10.5.5)

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore is not, in itself, a solution.
First, empty the Trash, if possible.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
find ~ $TMPDIR.. $ -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 $ 2>&- | wc -l | pbcopy
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run.
Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.
The output of the command will be a number. It's automatically copied to the Clipboard. Please paste it into a reply.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

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