As an ex-Windows user I didn’t realise that the UI on the Mac is quite different from the Windows one, both visually and usability-wise. This makes user interfaces of software originally written for Windows really awkward to use. I decided to look for more native and free alternatives to my PHP development apps.

Having tried several packages in each category, here is what I found to be the best.

Best PHP IDE for Mac OS X

I have been a long-standing fan of Eclipse PDT. I always liked how complete the feature set of it was. However, Eclipse really feels sluggish and ugly on a Mac. That’s why I tried Netbeans, which looks native (althouth also Java-based) and is soo much faster than Eclipse. It also has as a more back-to-basics approach to the UI while maintaining quite a rich feature set at the same time.

Best MySQL management tool for Mac OS X

Although I use PHPMyAdmin daily I realised that a good desktop application for managing MySQL is still a better tool for the job. Having tested a few of them I decided to go with Sequel Pro, whose interface is simple and powerful at the same time allowing for inline data editing and simple column creation. It also allows you to connect through an SSH tunnel, which is particularly handy for remote databases.

Best LAMP stack for Mac OS X

MAMP is the king of local LAMP stacks on MacOS, hands down. Although quite a simple app it gives you everything you need to run you local server set up. It’s a bit of a shame that the option to create virtual hosts costs money.

One of the drawbacks of MAMP is that if you want to run Apache on port 80 it will ask you for you password every time you run it (annoying). Fortunately you can avoid that by running this app I wrote, which stores MAMPs password in your Keychain.

These are my favourite applications. What are yours?

Fortunately there is a way around this. I’ve put together a small app that runs Apache & MySQL from MAMP without asking for a password each time. It’s quite secure because it uses a stored password locked in the Keychain. It also quits Apache & MySQL when you quit the app itself.

Here is how to use it:

1. Open the Keychain Access app and click ‘+’ to add a new item. Call the item ‘MAMP’ and enter the account name and password that you use to log in to your Mac.
2. Download and launch the MAMP No Password app

Enjoy!

Release 1.1 updates (20th March 2013):

• Added a dock icon menu to restart Apache and MySQL.
• Changed the name of the app to MAMP No Password.
• Added compatibility with OS X 10.7 and newer (thanks @robwierzbowski and Steve @ Tech Otaku)

Here is a little something for all of you Mac-lovers who use Windows. A quick and easy way to have Mac OS X mouse cursors on a PC running Windows 7, Vista or XP. Although personally I’m not a Mac person, one of the first things I do after installing a fresh copy of Windows is change the mouse pointers to the Mac OS X ones. Usually this means I have to download a zip of individual pointer icons and then manually assign them to the right cursors in the Control Panel, which is a bit annoying.Well, I don’t have to do this anymore. This morning I put together a nice and easy installer that does all that manual work for me. You can download the installer using the link below.

Download Mac OS X Cursors Easy Installer

Thanks to Shinde for uploading the cursors to Winmatrix.com