graeme_p - 11:24 am on Nov 4, 2012 (gmt 0)

But aliases provide a better way of defining the top level root directory of a site to more closely mimic the site as deployed on a production server.

DO you mean you want it to be on exactly the same domain as the production server would be on? Either edit the hosts file, or run a local DNS server.

If you just want to use some sort of domain names, Linux usually supports multicast DNS of of the box (domain names are [computername].local). AFAIK the usual solutions for Windows is Apple's "Bonjour for Windows"