For instance, if you go to the '/Applications/' folder in Terminal, that's your current working directory ( cwd). Relative paths are defined based on where you've already navigated to, and represented by './'. So if you wanted to make a path to your Applications folder, you would write '/Applications/'. An absolute path starts at the root level of your hard drive, and is displayed as '/'. Paths take two forms: absolute paths and relative paths. Paths look similar in some ways to website sub-directories, and follow the structure of your folders.

To do so, you build something called a path.

You can use Terminal to get direct access to your files without using the Finder. When writing commands and paths in Terminal, almost everything is case sensitive: This means that you need to remember to properly capitalize 'Dock' when referring to the Dock, or OS X won't understand your command. Unless you're executing a command that requires the display of text in Terminal, you won't have any indicator that what you've done has been successful you'll just get a new line with your user name on it once the command is finished processing.

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