K-Create » mac

Changing location for screen shots in Mac Os X

Kris Hedstrom — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:20:46 +0000

I take a lot of screenshots, and while Os X makes it easy to capture the screen – Cmd + Shift + 3 to capture entire desktop, Cmd + Shift +4 to capture a portion, or Cmd + Shift + 4 and then hit the spacebar to screen grab an entire application window – it saves all the shots to the desktop. I don’t like to clutter up my desktop so I usually change the default folder for screen shots. Here’s how, open Terminal and type in:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location //

Replace with the full path to the directory where you want to store you screen shots (the directory has to exist). Example: /Users/Kris/Desktop/screengrabs.

Log out and back in again and your all set.

How to edit the host file on Mac (Leopard)

Kris Hedstrom — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:06:46 +0000

The host file is used to by an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. It’s useful for testing local files as remote domains. On Windows systems is typically located at

c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts

On a Mac you can edit the host file by opening up the Terminal app and typing in:

$ sudo nano /private/etc/hosts

Sudo is the superuser command so you’ll be prompted for your password.

Once you’ve edited the file you can exit out by ctrl+x (you’ll be prompted to save the file).

The last step is to flush the DNS cache, to have your chances take effect immediately. In Leopard you can do this by typing in:

$ dscacheutil -flushcache

That’s all. Your new binding should now work.

open sword – pixen

Kris Hedstrom — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:32:34 +0000