Can't connect to local IP addresses, or domain names, but can ping them.

[mclii]

Hey,

I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on why I can't connect to local IP addresses or domain names through a web browser, but I can ping them.

It's kind of strange actually, let me describe it a bit for you. I can see the "main" domain, so if I type in 'http://www.maindomain.com', everything loads fine. However, if I type any other of the subdomains (that I actually need to get to), I can't see them, like 'http://info.maindomain.com'. I have to hop on over to a Windows box in order to see these, but neither of the OS X machines can see these addresses.

What's even stranger, is that while it's waiting to contact 'http://info.maindomain.com' the address in the Safari browser window changes to 'http://www.info.maindomain.com', and then back to 'http://info.maindomain.com', and then says it can't connect to that server.

Stranger still, to me, is that I can ping 'http://info.maindomain.com' and get an IP address.

I can see that address through the ping command, so I figure, why not just enter the IP address in the web browser? That should fix it...

Well, I enter the IP address that I got from the ping command, and it does the same funkiness described above, waits for a bit, adds 'www' before the IP address, then switches back, and then says it can't connect to the server.

Weird.

Does any of that make any sense? Let me know if anyone needs more info. It's as clear as mud to me!