I know this is a resolved issue, but I thought I could add the following which has saved me loads of time and headache.
One tool that is not mentioned in this thread is Interconnectit.com’s Search and Replace Tool.
This tool takes care of url renaming and the serial string business. I put the php script in my root folder of MAMP (NOT my wordpress intstallation, due to the localhost connectivity issue mentioned by nachiketkumar) and entered in the appropriate database information and ran the script to replace my live site url with localhost:8888/’wordpress folder’
