Is there a way to get around a PHP application that checks the domain it's on?

[BW:*|4fun]

I have acquired a PHP application that has a system class encoded with Ion Cube PHP Encoder.I copied the files and moved them to a new server, a development one. The first thing that got me was the application was to only work on the domain it was on, so obviously not from \[code\]localhost\[/code\] or any other server.I'm guessing somewhere in the encoded code is a string comparison from a hardcoded string to where the site is running from.I'm not looking to do anything illegal or against the software license - just I want to do all the development on a different server, and then push the files back to the original domain.Basically, minimise downtime for the production site.Is there any tricks I can do? Can I stuff with my hosts file to do it?ThanksUpdateForgot to mention that I have tried changing \[code\]$_SERVER\[/code\] before the PHP checks. There is also a config file which asks for the URL. Leaving it on the old domain doesn't work, and changing it results in the invalid domain error.