db column name issues

[Steve Terpening]

I just went through the pain of migrating SQLServer db on win2000 server to apple G5 OS-X 10 (linux) pre-installed MySQL.

1) There's no real good tool for the migration, as I see from the posts. I did SQLServer DTS to get the table structure out, and edited the hell out of the file to get it to execute in MySQL (with \.). The "if-not-already" checks are way different between the two db's. Used ...INFILE to load the data, and fortunately found the note about LINES TERMINATE WITH "\r\n" instead of "\n". Only had to reload 3 tables after the rows got all screwed up by INFILE. At least the column order is consistent when migrating. And thank god all my dates were stored as longs. No question here, just fodder for the tool dev group.

2) For the life of me, I couldn't get "sql_mode" to work. MySQL refuses to recognize it as a System Variable, even though Show Variables displays it (with a value of 0). As per the documentation, I tried several ways to change it to 'mssql', but I've been ignored. I know I can't do it on the fly (Macs have version 4.0.something), but at startup? Any ideas?

3) In general, the admin on a G5 leaves alot to be desired. You have to be a total SysAdmin to figure out the exec chain that begins by starting MySQL as a service, and ends with the mssqld execution. And after all that, MySQL doesn't even show up in the G5's Services List in Server Admin. I know it's a Mac issue, but anyone to commiserate with out there? PS: Why is shutdown part of mysqladmin, but startup isn't?

4) THE REAL QUESTION. Forgive my verbosity - I'm the only guy in my shop.
I inherited stupid column names like "int1" and "string2", and MySQL hates them. It's insisting that I '`' (identifier-quote) them all. Now that's a boatload of SQL statements I'd have to weed through in the applications. How can I get MySQL to recognize these names without the '`'? I thought sql_mode would do it, but like I said, I can't even get sql_mode to be different than out-of-the-box. HELP!

TIA,
Steve Terpening