On the Developer Tutorials blog, there's a new post showing you what all you'll need to install to work with WordPress offline "like a pro" on your local machine.

I used to work off of my web server but the problem I've had lately is that when I'm not connected to the internet I haven't been able to code for Wordpress in a way that allows me to view my changes. Since I started using the techniques used in this tutorial my productivity has increased significantly.

His method has you install MAMP on your local machine (for the Windows users, WAMP is just about as easy to set up) and how to import content over from your remote server to the local machine. Of course, you could just set up a subversion repository, but that's another tutorial...

Are you thinking about getting into working with PHP on your local Windows machine, but aren't sure how to get it all set up (or maybe just don't want to bother with it all). It's really not as hard as you think, and this quick post shows you how to get it up and working in just a few minutes.

Obviously, it depends on your download time, but from the start of the install out to the testing of the configuration, there's less than 20 steps between you and a working installation. Each step is detailed to the point of telling you line numbers to go and change in the config files and what files to move where.

In the end, you'll have a standard WAMP (Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP) installation up and ready to serve out your application.