Since we've covered where to find cool themes, the basics of theme layouts and files, as well as how to modify your theme, the next thing you're probably going to want to do is modify a theme to your personal preferences.

While you could just make all your changes directly to your code and continually restart your server to see them instantly go live, this process is both very tedious and potentially dangerous to the live version of your blog if something goes wrong.

To avoid both of these situations, you need to install Ghost locally so that you can test it. There are a few different ways of doing this, but the simplest method I've found is to use Bitnami.

Visit the Bitnami site and click on "Download Now" button and select the Ghost image (or click right here for it).

Select the OSX installer (top button):

Open the DMG file that just downloaded and double click to install:

Follow the instructions through the wizard (you'll be prompted to create an "account", this will be to log into your local instance of Ghost. I made it the same as my live version to make it easier to remember):

Since we want to use this installation locally, use the 127.0.0.1 domain:

Then it will install:

After the installation is finished, you can open your Applications folder with Finder and find a Ghost folder:

Go ahead and open it to see this. Select and open Manager OSX:

This will open up the Bitnami Ghost Stack Application manager:

Click on "Manage Servers" from the menu at the top. Go ahead and start you server by clicking on "Start All" at the bottom:

The "lights" will turn green indicating that everything is up and running after a few seconds:

Click on "Welcome" across the top. Then click on "Go To Application". This will open a browser window to your local host and show you your Ghost installation (it'll be a little bear at first):

You can go ahead and just add /ghost to the url bar just like you would if you were logging into the live instance and you'll see the login page come up:

Go ahead and use the account information you entered during the Bitnami wizard process and you'll be logged into your local installation of Ghost:

You can go ahead and add similar elements like logo, profile and cover images in order to have the local instance look like the live version.

Now if you return to the Ghost folder that appeared in your Application folder and select "apps" this time:

Then click on ghost > htdocs you'll find the ghost installation that looks identical to your Cyberduck SFTP connection to your live server!

Click on the content folder (as shown above to access the Theme folder). Drag and drop a copy of whatever theme you'd like to use and modify in this local version of your site into this folder like I've done:

Now you need to open your Bitnami Application and reset all servers:

Then go back to your browser and local Ghost installation (or launch it again from the Welcome page of the Bitnami app) and select settings and find your new theme from the drop down:

Now you're ready to start playing around with the code on a local installation of your Ghost blog and once you're ready to push it live, you can just copy all the files you've develop and tested locally into the live version through Cyberduck.