In a previous post, I talked about how you could interact with Azure Storage using Azure Storage Explorer.
A pain for developers is the need to have an Azure Storage account setup with a subscription when developing applications that interact with Azure Storage blobs or data.
The Azure Storage Emulator is a nifty little tool allows developers to work against local storage and with the extra bonus that this local storage can be picked up and browsed by Azure Storage Explorer.
I was able to get familiar with much of the API (in c#) from this great sample that uses Azure Storage Explorer and the Azure Storage Emulator.
Download and Install the Azure Storage Emulator here