Laptop does not always recognise server

[John]

John wrote:
> Brian McKee wrote:
>   
>> On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 6:14 AM, John <John at dmj-consultancy.co.uk> wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> In Firefox: try to access my local home page by name but with my
>>> external URL (.co.uk instead of forcing the local intranet domain,
>>> .local) - works fine
>>>     
>>>       
>> Your local domain is .local?   Are you using Zeroconf or is it
>> possible your laptop has avahi running and it's conflicting with the
>> existing domain setup?  I haven't spent any time on avahi so I know
>> little about it, but the coincidence seemed like a good place to
>> start.
>>   
>>     
> Yes, by using .local, it seems to ensure that it does not get out to the big wide world!
>
> just checking in Synaptic package manager, avahi does seem to be 
> installed but there's no reference to zeroconf. I have no idea what 
> either of these do!
>
> John
>
>   
Having googled avahi, and also found that avahi-autoipd was running on 
my 8.04 laptop but not my older one, I have used SPN to remove 
avahi-autoipd. Even after a reboot, it makes on difference. I also still 
seem to have a reference to 169.x.x.x in my network settings.

How do I progress from here, please?

TIA

J