Serendipity Forums

I'm trying to set up a blog for a friend and have tried several solutions before trying Serendipity. I couldn't believe how easy and professional it is. It would be nice for non-power users to have links to their home page - or is this possible?
Two problems though, so far. I can't save the new admin username and password, or email. It saves everthing else, but insists on John Doe. I've tried logging out, clearing my cache, and
I tried changing it in serendipity_config_local.tpl, but to no avail.
I'd appreciate some help in simple English - I don't know much about MySQL or other technical terms I've seen in the forum.
The second problem appears to be with permissions. If I change from 777 to 744 or 644 as suggested in the install file, it forbids me to access admin. My host runs PHP Version 4.3.4
With thanks for marvellous work, and in anticipation for help

edit it directly in your mysql tables

tomsommer wrote:edit it directly in your mysql tables

Thanks for that. I got rid of John Doe but also everything else, replaced by :
Query failed: Unknown column 'a.username' in 'field list'
and though the new username and password are in the mysql table, they're still not showing once I save it in Serendipity admin.
I'm not experienced with mySQL, so I obviously deleted something important. Not to worry. I'll delete the installation and re-install it in the New Year.
Seasons Greetings! and thanks again for a marvellous piece of work.