Imagecache giving me error messages and thumbnails and full images are not showing up.

I have reviewed everything I could find on the issues below- can you help please?
Here are the different issues:

#1 & #2 are based on a live site (using drupal 6.13) whereas problem #3 is on my local sandbox setup (on the mac using mamp and drupal6.13.
1. when I go to create content (a person is what I call it) I try to upload a picture(which has no spaces or odd charachters, etc..) and it gives me a pink message "An image thumbnail was not able to be created." I have done everything properly, checked the .htaccess file for the proper code and it is in there, etc...I have also created the imagecache preset which also is causing me error messages (see number 2.)

2. I go to create an imagecache preset and after I pick what I want it to do (like scale or anything else) and click on update preset it gives me this error message: "warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. The script whose uid is 10002 is not allowed to access /var/www/vhosts/abovegraphics.com/httpdocs/abbe01/sites/default/files/imagecache owned by uid 48 in /var/www/vhosts/abovegraphics.com/httpdocs/abbe01/sites/all/modules/imagecache/imagecache.module on line 525."
Can you tell me how to fix all this? I have tried several things. I have also clicked on the flushed button. Thank you.

3. I am also working on a local sandbox site that I am also having another problem with:
I go to add views, put in views name and views description and select node and click next. On this new page I add filters (I select node: published and node type) and click add, it then asks me if I want to Configure filter Node: Publish I select yes under "Published" and I click update, I then need to Configure filter Node: Type and under Operator: I select "Is one of" and under Node type: I check "person" and then click update button, I then go to the fields and bring up fields. I then click on content:date of birth, content: first name, content: headshot, content:married to, node: titled and I then click on add. on this next page I select widget label(date of birth), format: default and click update. On the next page I select widget label(first name), format: default and click update. On the next page I select widget label(headshot), and check link this field to it's node and select the file 100x100 image linked to node and then click update. On the next page I then select widget label(married to), format: Title (link) and click update. On next page I remove Title from the title area and check link this field to its node and click update. IT IS AT THIS POINT I GET AN WARNING MESSAGE SAYING :"the page at http://localhost:8888 says: An error occured at abbe1/admin/build/views/ajax/preview/temp. I click ok and save the page anyways and then on this new page it says: "Warning: require_once(./sites/all/modules/views/includes/query.inc) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/abbe1/sites/all/modules/views/views.module on line 512. I cannot figure out what is wrong with this either. Would appreciate any help you can give me with all these issues. Thanks so much!
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