Complete and utter beginner / idiot. <----

[aidan28]

I'm hoping to setup an online shop very soon and I've been trying to do so on a mac. I have the website, and have downloaded zencart, mamp and xampp. However, I keep hitting brick walls. None of the help guides I have found have explained it well enough for me (Ie, to a complete and utter beginner with absolutely no experience what-so-ever) I attempted to follow these instructions:

1. Download the software from the mamp.info website
2. Agree to install terms
3. Drag the MAMP folder to the Applications folder (a usual Mac procedure)
4. In the Applications/MAMP folder, double-click on the MAMP.app file
5. Accept license, and choose just to use MAMP, and not MAMP PRO.
6. Click on Start Servers in the MAMP application control window.
7. Decided that I wanted to change the preferences so that Apache runs on port 80 (so I don't have to say localhost:8888 everything I want to look at my local server), so I clicked on Preferences, then on Apache, then on Use Apache and MySQL defaults, and saved the changes. It asked for my MAC user password in order to allow the system port change to be completed.
8. Clicked on Open Start Page, and it shows me all my appropriate settings such as my MySQL username and password so I can put them into my Zen Cart when I set it up.
9. Clicked on the phpMyAdmin tab, and created a new database named zencart138.
10. Use finder to create an /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/zencart folder (change "zencart" to whatever you prefer)
11. Unzip a copy of Zen Cart files into that folder.
12. Open the browser and point it to: http://localhost/zencart ... and Zen Cart fires up in Install mode.
13. Fill in all the fields as appropriate, and complete installation.
14. Access my store as usual via http://localhost/zencart and admin as http://localhost/zencart/admin

However, upon step 12 the system says:

In order for the installer to store the setup information you provide in the following pages, the configure.php files shown below need to be "writable".

* includes/configure.php = Unwriteable
* admin/includes/configure.php = Unwriteable

The problem is my macbook doesn't seem to have (Or I just can't find) the method by which the website tells me how to edit the file privileges.

I'm desperate for any help anyone can offer and would seriously appreciate someones' kind and patient efforts. When explaining anything to me, assume I have NO prior knowledge at all, so don't skip any steps!

Thanks in advance!

[misty]

Quick SEARCH on forums reveals
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpo...3&postcount=22

[rstevenson]

To which should be added...

4. Expand the Details section under Permissions, and set all three drop-downs to Read & Write. You may be asked to enter your system password to do this.

Rob