Just another quick question: Does everyone go through akamai.net to get to Apple? The reason I ask is because it works fine when you use the URL that does not go through akamai.net. When you go through akamai.net it doesn't work. I wonder if that's the reason....

Just a thought...

Well, I don't know where else to go with this but I decided to open up a Citrix session (thin client connection to a Windows 2000 server at my work). I opened IE and the page displayed fine, the GIF displayed fine, no problems. So then I opened up Virtual PC running XP Pro. I opened IE and went to the Apple home page and the GIF did not load. THe only difference is when using Citrix, I am actually connecting to my office LAN and when I open a browser in Citrix, the data is coming through the ISP at work. When I open a browser in Virtual PC (or any of my native Mac browsers) I am using my home ISP. It is the strangest thing I have ever encountered....

Do you have anything set in the proxies tab of the network prefpane?

I'm curious, what does this do?