I don't know much about phpmyadmin so I'm a little lost...image upload isn't working locally. It said I need to check my configuration...anybody know where to start?

Usually this error can be traced back to two reasons -
1. The folder where the images get uploaded (by default 'couch/uploads/image') does not have the required permission. You can try setting 777 (i.e. write permissions) to the folder.
2. I've also seen this happen when someone edits 'config.php', 'kfunctions.php' or 'lang/EN.php' etc. user-configurable files but puts in a space before the opening <?php tag which breaks the XML. Please check if this is not the case.
You can try using the new file-manager (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7712) and see if it helps.