Sorry I'm sure you got something better to do with your time then help a noob like me but I just have one more question (more like a few):
Should I change the ports? does it matter what I change them to?
Yes change the ports for the same reason. Otherwise other coins can connect to your client and attempt to send blocks and transactions to it. That's bad. IIRC there's also some magic numbers you need to change so if somehow another coin does connect to one of your clients, any blocks or transactions sent from it are invalid and will be dropped. And vice versa of course.
I don't know where these magic numbers are in the code. I haven't studied the code very closely because right now I don't intend to make an altcoin.