Huh...well that's starting to make MUCH more sense now!
Thank you!
(I'm still not sure which mechanism is responsible for ensuring hosts share and learn the host/domain names of other hosts in a LAN--likely some type of ARP protocol methinks--but that I can discover myself.)
One last lingering obscurity remains...while it makes perfect sense on a scale as large as the Internet, is there any practical reason for hosts in small LANs to have domain names???
(lol, that last question was 20 lines long before I condensed it :P)
***Comon people, don't make jggimi answer ALL the questions!***
Jack