Approx. 7 Aug 2005 20:36:04 -0700, someone calling themselves hierr...@hotmail.com  let their cat run across the keyboard resulting in:

:-)= I've been having this problem for 2 weeks already. I can't access
:-)= www.google.com or log into my hotmail on my laptop at home. The
:-)= operations timed out. All other computers have no problems, including
:-)= the desktop accessible the same router at home. Certain other random
:-)= sites are inaccessible too.
:-)=
:-)= I tried pinging www.google.com (which resolves to www.l.google.com at
:-)= 66.102.7.147) and it failed. Then I tried pinging google.com
:-)= (216.239.57.99), and it worked.
:-)=
:-)= I've read that it could be the QHost trojan, but i ran Symantec's
:-)= cleaning tool and it said none detected. I've also scanned with Spybot,
:-)= Ad-aware, and AVG Anti-Virus, but all were ok. I have ZoneAlarm running
:-)= all the time.
:-)=
:-)= It fails on both IE and firefox.
:-)=
:-)= Any clues?

I've heard other people having similar problem with Hotmail but never with Google.

Don't know if it would help to see which ports open and close when you are trying.

I heard of similar problem where a browser was blocked from going to mail.com and problem was solved
by routing the browser to mail01.com instead.  

Very curious sitchiashun - I went to http://www.hotmail.com and got a sign-in page.
Closed browser. reopened and DPA2 could not go to hotmail.com, M$ has ID'd my computer
and blocked because nothing else was changed in that 10 - 15 seconds.
Ther's a way around that...

try:  https://login.passport.net/uilogin ?   Click the hotmail tab on the toolbar.   [secure login?]

Nothing unusual went back & forth, not unusual for a Micro$ost site, that is.
msn and passport certificates don't pass test but I allowed them anyhoo (Moz/Firefox/DP2A]
Does IEand/or firewall have certificate acceptance control?
Or for IE, M$Windoze security level settings?

HTH

Pax Vobiscum