[TYPO3-english] Typo3 and MAMP question

[marina t]

Hi all,

After building a number of static Websites with BBEdit (hand-coding 
HTML and CSS files), and hosting them through virtual Webhosting 
providers, I am finding myself in a situation where keeping those 
sites up-to-date, and creating the new sites we need, is becoming too 
complicated for "handwriting" everything, as I've been doing for more 
years than I care to remember. Especially since I am not a 
programmer, even though I have significant experience and a good 
understanding of how the Web works.

In an effort to find a more efficient solution, I have been 
researching CMS's, but haven't been able to find the "best" answer to 
my needs yet. Basically, I would like to maintain the same workflow I 
got used to, which is to develop locally and only publish to the Web 
when I am (reasonably) sure that everything works as expected.

So far, I have roughly tested a few CMS's, including WordPress, 
Drupal, Textpattern and Movable Type, before arriving at Typo3. But I 
am still sort of stuck in the middle, as I have only been able to 
test those CMS's (except MT and Typo3) as pre-installed "goodies" on 
my Web hosting service - which defeats my idea of having a local 
sandbox I can work in, without having to rely on a permanent Internet 
connection, which is not always available.

So, I have downloaded MAMP and Typo3, and suppose I am ready to start 
experimenting with a local Web server and a CMS. But...... there's a 
few questions I couldn't find a clear answer to!

The main question is, where do I install Typo3 on my local system?
As a veteran Mac user, I am familiar with the Applications folder - 
but I would like to keep my Web server root directory in a separate 
area of my computer.

So, is it possible to have MAMP installed "globally", in the 
Applications folder, and Typo3 installed somewhere else, so that it 
can be used for different Websites, stored in different directories 
and possibly under different User accounts? (This is the type of 
structure I am most familiar with, and would like to keep for my 
local web server)

If someone could point me in the right direction or provide an 
answer... that would be great!

Many thanks in advance,

marina
(parlo anche italiano)
OS X 10.6.8
MAMP-MAMP Pro 2.1.4 (demo version for another couple of weeks)
Typo3 as supplied with introductionpackage-6.1.0.zip