The hosts file, a blessing from above, the one thing Micro$oft did well. You can get a really complete hosts file here and for, what gave me a little performance boost, check out eDexter. It's just a companion to the hosts file and instantly sends back transparent minuscule gif files from your hard drive, instead of waiting for the connection to time out and error, which can take an eternity.

And for those who don't know, 127.0.0.1 is the IP address for *your* computer. I believe 0.0.0.0 works too, but although the 127 is sometimes a tad slower, it is far more proven to work in all situations.

Cheers!