hehehe... that's OK... that's just there to discourage amateurs from mucking about in things they ought'nt. Win98/95/3.11/DOS (all the same OS) actually prefers LMHOSTS over HOSTS. That might work. As I recall, in the TCP/IP configuration for a particular network connector, there is also a checkbox that needs checked... as I recall it says something to the effect of "Use LMHOSTS file" for DNS lookups.
It's been close to 12 hours since the DNS issue was fixed, and it should be that these workarounds should stop being necessary pretty soon. As soon as the name servers at your ISP finally update off the root servers the whole problem should go away. The decay of DNS root server updates is a half-life model. About every 12 hours half of the un-updated DNS servers across the internet finally get a zone transfer of updated information. 12 hours later another half get updated... 12 hours later another half... and so on and so on...
For most users in the US it only takes about 24 hours, though 36 hours is not uncommon. For the rest of the planet it can take up to a week for all the updates to cascade out...