I know I might be a little late in answering this but I see on a few sites that you are asking about setting the correct timezone in MAMP.
It should be noted that there are two locations for a php.ini file for the version of php you are using. MAMP could be loading it from a different path then the one you are editing.
For example, lets say we are using php 5.3. Here are two locations of a php.ini file that could confuse someone on which one to edit.
/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.3/conf/php.ini
You seem to be editing it at this location below:
/Applications/MAMP/conf/php5.3/php.ini
Editing the timezone in the second path did not work for me but editing the one in the first one did. It could be that you are editing the wrong file even though it looks the same. I have tested this on my version. Running <?php phpinfo(); ?>
in a php file and checking the path of the php.ini file will always show the correct path.
Also just to point out, using double quotes around the value of date.timezone will work. For example in my php.ini file the following works.
date.timezone = "America/Vancouver"
Also the default value was encapsulated in double quotes as well.
I was also using MAMP version 2.1.1 when testing this out.