If you've delved into the world of dynamic web development, you know that whole Web 2.0 thing... you've probably encountered the fact that you have to learn how to run a local web server complete with PHP and a MySQL server on your local machine to test with. If you're on the Mac, you might have seen that OS X luckily comes with a basic installation of Apache and that using Marc Liyanage's great PHP installer package can get you up and running rather painlessly.

What happens when you need the latest and greatest versions of Apache, PHP and MySQL server to try out some web apps locally, and you're not a UNIX expert? You could fire up terminal and try to follow tutorials that are inconsistent with the versions you are able to grab, or you could give MAMP (Mac Apache MySQL PHP) a shot.

After you have downloaded the self contained disk image, you can literally be up and running with dynamic web applications and administering databases within seconds. It's basically a preconfigured folder with a basic cocoa interface to start and stop the servers, and if you read the 5 line readme file, you'll know what folder to place your web files in. Quick, painless, powerful, and so far, awesome.