Where have the alias' gone?

My friend has a macbook. Sorry I can't tell you the model #. It is white and runs os 10.5.8.
Last night I was moving some things around. I imported come photos off of my iphone 4, using the image capture tool. I ended up only wanting 2 images, but 134+ of them ended up on the desktop. I deleted them after wards but he says that one of his programs went missing from the dock. Dock files are alias' right? all of the pics tat I deleted from the desktop ended up in the trash. (good thing) If I accidentally dropped/drag an alias to the desktop and then deleted it, would it be in the trash? It isn't. He claims it is open office, but I didn't see it and he isn't sure. according to soundforge, they don't make a 32bit .dmg version of open office. I am confused. Any of this make sense? I see that numbers, pages, and notes are now there. They wouldn't have deleted it right? Thanks.

Yes true, they are just a Alias or a link to the real App that sits in the Applications folder. Search in there and drag it back to the Dock, and all will be fine.

Yes, that is the weird part. I learned about alias in the dock from here. This site rocks! You people are great. I will look there for that app again. That is what I did yesterday and couldn't find it. At least I was able to chase down an older copy of it for his OS in case I need to reinstall it.
Many thanks!

An older copy of the operating system?

If it came from a pirate site do not install it!!!!

I think your friend is having a lend of you. If you checked the trash after "this incident" and haven't emptied it, then you either didn't trash anything, or he/she is playing silly buggers, because anything deleted WOULD be in the Trash.

So, Does open office document have an extension of .ods? I found it odd that there were no alias's in the trash, but the icon was gone. Also I can't find an open office folder or install. Quite weird. My friend says that icons have gone away and reappeared in the past. Possibly an OS issue or something else. I have to look. I think I remember seeing something about disappearing items.