[Techtalk] Host names on a LAN

[John Sturdy]

I'm looking at doing something similar, but with a slight twist (and
I've not got much experience of network setup, so this may be a fairly
basic question, in which case telling me a word to google for may be
enough):

I have a home router with wireless (BT HomeHub) which looks reasonably
configurable (http://www.filesaveas.com/hubhelp.html).  On it I'm
using a desktop machine and a netbook (both Debian) and an N900
(Maemo, which is Debian-based).  I want to be able to refer to the
machines by name (for convenient rsync, mostly, and maybe nfs mounts,
and to ssh into the N900 when I want to hack on it).  However, the
netbook might appear on other wifi networks when I use it away from
home, and the N900 will both do that and also use GPRS/GSM modem, so I
want to be able to switch quickly (and preferably automatically)
between having static IP addresses and using /etc/hosts at home, and
DHCP when outside.

There's probably just one thing I should look up to find how to do
this, I suspect (I've tried "zone" and "location" but that doesn't
help) -- any pointers?

__John