Dmitry,
The hosts file is a text file that keeps a list of domain names with their
associated IP addresses. It's basically a local DNS. What happens is your
computer looks at this list first to see if the webname/page is listed, and
if it is, it uses the accompanying IP address. If the domain name is not
listed, then it goes out on the internet to your ISP's DNS.
My hosts file is located in "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\" folder (it
may be different in your setup). Note: It's easiest to open the hosts file
in notepad (or any program that saves in plain text), but that you cannot
make an association as there is no extension.
There are lots of advantages to using the hosts file. It can speed up
accessing a webpage (as it resolves on your computer instead of going to a
potentially overloaded ISP's DNS). It can be used to avoid looking at
advertisements (I used to use it before I fell in love with Firefox). It
can be used in situations like yours.
As for the other issue, I don't know. Sorry. You could always run both
ethernet connections at once and manually set one for internet and one for
intranet. That's what I do at home. I use fixed IP addresses (with
different ranges) on both cards for a variety of reasons, which I won't go
into here.
Robert
