Glad to hear you found those links useful. That said, and once gone through the motions, you might want to revisit Hal’s ‘one-stop shopping’ suggestion of the freeware text editor TextWrangler. I found TW’s "Open Hidden" command* (File menu) using the file path provided above (/private/etc/hosts) a surprisingly handy way to edit Hosts files. Of course, there's no arguing about taste...
*) UPDATE: according to its Release Notes, starting with TextWrangler 3.5, the "Open Hidden" command has been removed from the File menu, since the "Show Hidden Items" check box is available [in the file dialog box, alt] on all supported systems now".
Last edited by alternaut; 01/15/1208:48 PM. Reason: TextWrangler changes
That said, and once gone through the motions, you might want to revisit Hal’s ‘one-stop shopping’ suggestion of the freeware text editor 
