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Using hostnames will only work if you are setup to use them. When you use a hostname, your PC will first look it up in its hosts file (/etc/host in Linux/BSD, \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in windows) to map it to an IP address. You can manually edit these files to provide your own local network's hostname to IP mapping. If it doesn't find it there it'll ask its local DNS server. On windows, "ipconfig /all" will show you your DHCP assigned DNS server). Many routers/firewalls will run a local DNS server and let you assign hostnames so you can use hostnames on your local network such as laser-printer or htpc etc. For that to work you'd need to be setup to have DHCP provide fixed IP's to specific MAC addresses so you can map a hostname to an IP and have it always get to the same device. If none of this is setup the DNS query will just get forwarded to your providers DNS server and then only internet domain names will be resolved to an IP.
Hope that helps. If not there's some great how-to's out there just a quick Google away.
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