This worked for me - your mileage may vary.
I was having the same issues as most on the many forums with just X's or nothing showing up when i viewed my site from the web.
After umpteen re-dos i did a simple edit to the .htaccess file on the web server. If you have your settings to block Hot Linking - this is probably the problem - it was for me. When i set this to NO - my site worked like i had expected.
Example:
# Use PHP5 as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php
RewriteEngine on (Set this to Off)
Here is a link that explains the .htaccess files:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess10.shtml
There may be a way to still have the Hot Linking Block set to On - but i have not got that far yet.
