Image Credit : John Conners

If you are a theme designer, plugin developer for WordPress CMS or a blogger who want to test new themes, plugin before pushing them in the production blog then the best bet is to install WordPress locally on your computer. That will ensure that you’ll be working much faster and will be able to test things quickly.

What are the benefits of setting up WordPress locally -

1. In case things go wrong : While trying things, it’s pretty natural that things may get out of control and that database can get corrupt or anything worse you may not even think of. Because you can test it locally, it puts you in control of the things.

2. Save your valuable time : You can save tremendous amount of time as you don’t have to upload any files through internet connection, which will be slow as compared to working locally.

Lets cook up the recipe of setting WordPress up locally on Mac OS X :

1) Ingredients required for the yummy stuff -

- 1 Cup of local web server like MAMP.
- 1 Cup of latest version of WordPress.
- 1/2 Cup Safari or Firefox.
- 2 table spoon of Mac Love.

Time Required : 10 Min.

2) Preparation of the meal -

- Put MAMP in the utensil : Simply install MAMP on OS X and launch the application and start Apache and MySQL. Then launch Safari or Firefox and open http://localhost:8888/MAMP/

Click on the PHPMyAdmin and create the database. Name it whatever you want, you can call it wordpress.

- Now mix WordPress with Mamp : Simply extract the WordPress to ../mamp/htdocs/wordpress/ and edit the wp-config.php file in your favorite text editor and fill these information -

Username : root
Password : root
Host : localhost:8888
Database : wordpress

3) Add the Mac Love and cook it for 5 minutes -

- Install WordPress : Simply point your favorite browser to http://localhost:8888/wp-admin/install.php and follow the WordPress installation steps.

4) Serve with Coffee -

Now that your yummy dish is prepared and feels tempting, to make it more delicious serve it with Hot Coffee and you’ll have the best time of the day.