HELP, Shaw cable modem

[John Maheu <jmaheu@raemac.econ.ualberta.ca>]

Having just had a cable modem installed on my home machine I
find I can't telnet/ftp to most machines. I can't ftp to
ftp.debian.org. I know my domainname is not
correct, and the dnslookup is causing the problem. How can I fix this? 
How do I change my domainname on a debian system?

Running Deb2, with dhcpcd. 

BTW the machine appears to be identified with my dynamically allocated
ip address plus the cable modem's domain.

*.*.*.*.edbd1.ab.wave.home.com
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
should this be my new domainname? 

Any help would be appreciated.
John
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John Maheu                phone  (403) 492-2049
University of Alberta     email  john.maheu@ualberta.ca
Dept. of Economics
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada, T6G 2H4
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