Using Mac OS X as my primary development platform is great since I can emulate my LAMP production environment a lot closely than I ever could developing on Windows.  One thing I missed for a while is being able to load the CHM (Compiled Help format used on Windows) manuals for PHP and MySQL quickly and easily (especially for those great disconnected development sessions while traveling when looking at the online documentation is not an option).

However, today I finally went searching and discovered several CHM viewers for Mac OS X.

Chmox does a pretty decent job, but the search function wasn’t working for me.

Another option is xCHM with a Mac OS X version available on VersionTracker.  It has the Search functionality and looks pretty much like the Windows CHM Viewer, but is slower and for some really bizarre reason, xCHM only lets you load a single CHM file at a time.

iCHM is a an all-around good app, and has a pretty nice tabbed viewing feature, but didn’t seem to be compabile with PHP’s CHM manual (the searching didn’t work) – worked fine with the MySQL CHM manual though.

Finally, there’s ArCHMock which is fast, has a decent search function, and seems to be the winner at least for my needs.

Now I have my CHM files happily sitting on the desktop.  The trip home for Thanksgiving will now be productive, unless the train is so packed that I don’t have room to take out my laptop. :-/

My brother Konstantin has been working on a BlackBerry app for NextJump’s Overwhelming Offers site.  Looks like the app got some press coverage today, on PCMag’s TechSaver site.  Way to go Konst, too bad the article doesn’t mention all the hours you’ve poured into that application.  Oh well, the developers behind the product rarely get mentioned

For those of you who don’t know, OverWhelming offers has daily offers of 50% off or more every Monday through Friday at noon (and some days more than one offer per day).  Definitely check it out for holiday shopping if you haven’t already.  Here’s a tidbit from a press release NextJump did for the app:

Every Monday through Friday at Noon (Eastern Daylight Time), OverwhelmingOffers.com posts one extraordinary offer from Next Jump’s more than 28,000 well-known retail and brand partners. However, on occasion, OverwhelmingOffers.com will surprise shoppers with “Super OO Days” where multiple offers are featured, such as 11 OOs this past November 11. Next Jump is planning many more Super OO Days in November and December. Shoppers can get a hint as to the day’s OO – such as “Mii+Mii=…” (Answer: Wii) – or they can sign up to get a sneak peek in advance via a daily email.

Funny, back when Konstantin was working on the actual OO site, he use to have to write those hints.  Anyways, Kudos to Konst for the app getting mentioned.