I use http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html for a local (on my pc) php and mysql server. The great thing about doing it this way is there is no configuration you need to do, its basically a normal install, it also has all the extras like smarty installed.
Here’s a video off youtube, showing you how to set it up:
I had been trying to get youtube videos on my wordpress blog for ages. Eventually I found out how by asking matt on msn (http://www.takemorerisks.com) basically this plugin http://www.paulbain.co.uk/simple-youtube-plugin-for-wordpress-easytube/ works great and its easy to use. The only thing to note is that when you go into your post editor/writing thing you need to change it to code when you put the url in the square brackets or it will try to stick the html code in for the link. I have a video example below.
visit http://www.addthis.com and add the bookmarking button to your website. It will help users to bookmark your pages in delicious and quite a few of the other social media sites.