Just a quick one today, pointed out by @crayons.
I use the built in Sites feature on my Mac for internal development purposes. Something I’ve noticed is that the I.P. address I need to access keeps changing. It was really starting to get annoying.
When I mentioned it to @crayons, he pointed out that I can change the options on my network settings from ‘Using DHCP‘ to ‘Using DHCP with manual address‘.
Now before you do that, copy down the I.P. address and then all you’ve got to do is just paste it into the relevant text box.
Simples!
Matt Bradley - September 29, 2009
The “Using DHCP with manual address” will only work with an Airport, or other router which supports DHCPINFORM – In effect6, you mac is asking the router’s DHCP server to assign it a specific IP address. If your router ignores this request, then your network will break altogether.
Ultimately, the DHCP server has authority over which IPs are assigned where, so anybody not using an Airport will need to login to their router control panel to set a fixed IP for their machine.
Most routers will allow you to assign fixed IP addresses to specific devices on your network. They do this based on the devices MAC address.
Matt Bradley - September 29, 2009
Correction Airport DOES NOT support this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA21403?viewlocale=en_US
Don’t know which routers do.
Jonny Haynes - September 29, 2009
Cheers for the update
James Sheriff - September 29, 2009
Doesn’t localhost just work as well? Or 127.0.0.1?
Jonny Haynes - September 29, 2009
Yeah, but if you want to send the url to someone else to view, say at work over the network for example.
You need a specific I.P. address not just your localhost.
Otherwise all it’ll show them is what’s on their localhost.
Floost - September 30, 2009
I added your blog to bookmarks. And i’ll read your articles more often!