What do y you mean by shortcuts? Some unicies use a file called aliases in /etc, but OSX uses NetInfo so if you have a machine called 'billsbox.microsoft.com' that you would like to use a service on, you go to NetInfo > Machines, copy the localhost setting and set an alias like billsbox.
If you mean you want to type 'home' and have the shell cd to ~, it depends on your shell, but assuming you are using the default tcsh shell, add aliases into your ~/.tcshrc file:
alias home 'cd ~/'
or you could tell .tcshrc to look into another file for your aliases (which is what I do)
source ~/.alias
create an .alias file in ~, and add your aliases as shown above.
