Well, no luck so far...

I've identified that my MAC (using MAMP) has a newer version of
PHP 5.2.10
MySQL client version 5.1.37

and my live server is
PHP 4.4.9
MySQL client version 5.0.51

I followed the suggestion at the bottom of this tutorial http://tutorials.zen-cart.com/index.php?article=103
which reads "NOTE: If you are going to be RESTORING to a server running different version of MySQL than what your backup came from, you should be careful about which additional switches you check ... you might need to ensure that you have the appropriate MySQL 4 checkboxes set, etc. Ask your hosting company for guidance if you are uncertain."

Here is the response from my hosting company:

"Well i can not help you import data from our database to your in house database. We do not provide that kind of support. I would get in trouble trying to help you figure out how to. I would recommend using the same version of mysql phpmyadmin on your pc. Mixing data between two different engines is not good and is sure to cause havoc in the future. I would recommend creating a test table (copy of a zencart table) then try to import it. If the data gets messed up, you know it wont work. If the data is ok, make sure to do one table at a time and be sure to have a backup of everything before you try. Really I would love to help, but this is not something we cover."

No idea what I should do from this point? Would be really nice to have my ZenCart running on my local machine though. MAMP seems like a great tool if I can get this to work out.

Again, any help or suggestions is always greatly appreciated.