[Nottingham] Network question - google unreachable?!

[vanschoo at speakeasy.net]

Hi,

  I'm using Mac OS X, and Firefox as my browser. I've been using this machine with no problems and then a few weeks ago I could no longer reach any google urls. I just get a message saying "server not found". Same thing if I use the Safari browser. Same thing with google.co.uk and google.com. Any other url loads ok.

  I can ping the google ip address a friend sent me:

sillyputty:~ njv$ ping 216.239.59.104
PING 216.239.59.104 (216.239.59.104): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.239.59.104: icmp_seq=0 ttl=246 time=70.200 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.59.104: icmp_seq=1 ttl=246 time=32.620 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.59.104: icmp_seq=2 ttl=246 time=32.334 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.59.104: icmp_seq=3 ttl=246 time=33.276 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.59.104: icmp_seq=4 ttl=246 time=32.165 ms
^C
--- 216.239.59.104 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 32.165/40.119/70.200/15.045 ms
sillyputty:~ njv$ 

  I have not installed new software or made any config changes to my machine. 

  Can this be a problem at the ISP? I'm at an apartment that supplies the internet (broadband) connection, so I can't talk directly to the service provider.

  What I wonder is can this be a problem in their network or DNS? I never heard of being unable to reach just one url unless the server in question was down. There's no way that all google servers in the US and UK have been down for weeks! 

 - njv