setting mamp ports to 80 and 3306

Just in case anyone is having the same problem, here is how I fixed it:

I opened the Activity Monitor program and selected "All Processes"
Next I search for "mysqld" in the search text field. There is a good chance that you have an instance of mysql running and you have to find it and hit quit process.
Restart MAMP and you should be all set.

i posted my solution here.. but will it annoy the editor gods to re-post? i found this works so clearly and consistently that it's worth evangelizing.

fix courtesy of Abhinav Sood.

1. Launch MAMP. Open Terminal by typing terminal into Spotlight (Command + Space).

2. Open MAMP Preferences (Command + , ) and click on Reset MAMP Ports (Port 8888 and Port 8889 for Apache and MySQL respectively). Click on OK.

3. Switch to the terminal. Type sudo apachectl stop to shutdown the system Apache.

4. Restart MAMP.

5. Open MAMP Preferences once again and click on Set to Default Apache and MySQL ports. This will set the Apache and MySQL ports to 80 and 3306 respectively.

6. Switch to the terminal. Type sudo apachectl restart to restart Apache.

7. Switch back to MAMP and click on Open Start Page (or go to http://localhost/MAMP/?language=English in your browser)

And you’re done.