I'm having problems getting started

Hi folks,

This started in my introduction post, but I thought that as I'm having continuing problems, I should take it to the help section.

Anyway, I've been trying to get my solidoodle 2 hooked up to my iMac, now running OS X version 10.8.2 (most recent version of Lion). I can't seem to get my system to recognize the Solidoodle, though it finds something - when I have the machine plugged in, the system report shows a USB connection to something called FT232R USB UART, which comes with this description:

FT232R USB UART:

  Product ID:    0x6001
  Vendor ID:    0x0403  (Future Technology Devices International Limited)
  Version:     6.00
  Serial Number:    AH01A69A
  Speed:    Up to 12 Mb/sec
  Manufacturer:    FTDI
  Location ID:    0xfa130000 / 6
  Current Available (mA):    500
  Current Required (mA):    90

However, Repetier can't find a port for the printer, a la Matt's problems in  (I had a link here, but the editor doesn't let me embed links - anyway its the Hello from Long Beach thread). I tried the same solutions, and got stuck someplace.

I was running python version 2.72. I couldn't tell whether that was 32-bit or not (I don't know python at all. I may well have to learn.) I tried just downloading the suggested Mac package, but when I tried running the resultant wxPython2.8 package, I got the error message saying it was damaged, and can't be opened. I guessed that I wasn't actually running 32 bit python, and tried downloading the most recent version from python.org. (version 3.3.0). It installed, but when I went to check on what version of python I was running, I still got back version 2.7.2, even after cycling the power on the machine.

So my current set of questions are:

1) is the failed build of the wxPython package indeed because I'm using the wrong version of Python?
2) If so,
  a) what's the right version?
  b) how do I make it my default version?

Tom