Now, I'm not planning to add another hosting company any time soon – especially since I just migrated a bunch of sites to a new VPS. But I'm always on the lookout for good hosting companies for the future and because I literally know hundreds of people who run their own businesses (probably an understatement) and certainly the topic of hosting comes up on a regular basis.

However, my treat was getting to READ some of blog posts at Historian – especially in the category called Steve's Insight here. That section reminds me of the kind of books that I just LOVE to buy – the kind where I can just dip into a section or two and after reading feel like I have a bit of deeper wisdom in the subject area.

The section I read today was something I hadn't really thought of, but it definitely have dire consequences if one of the scenarios that Steve discusses were to play out.

I'm talking about his blog post that asks "Is Your WebHost Legally Registered?" which is an especially important question for someone first starting up an online presence or pure internet business, because it's been my experience that often those are the type of people or businesses that will take a hard look at costs when making their hosting decision without taking an equally hard look at the risks involved.

I HIGHLY recommend you at least read that blog post – although I'm sure once you get to Hostirian you'll be there for more than ONE read!

It's a free 10-Day plan for learning a proven system for succeeding with an affiliate marketing business model. Obviously SiteBuildIt (SBI) would like you to buy their business building tools, but the truth is the content is general enough that you can develop your affiliate business out in a number of different ways.

Personally, I did start with their tools, but eventually ended up moving on as I don't like being "locked into" somebody elses system or technology. However, it is a very good system for someone just starting out as it's pretty easy to use and very complete and systematic.

But if you are willing and capable of learning to build your own sites or blogs I think you'd be much better off in the long run. That's one of the reasons that ExpertWordpress is recommended at WorkAtHomeTruth – because it goes a long way to make it much easier to set up your own website(s) and it comes with a support forum.

Whatever you decide about the SiteBuildIt tools, the Affiliate Masters Course is still a great read if your new to affiliate marketing.

Click here to get the SBI Affiliate Masters Course (scroll to the bottom of the page until you see the picture of the book).

You can ask any internet marketing related questions at the "Internet Marketing for Newbies" forum whether it be about web page design, list building, sales page reviews, well really anything at all that you might need.

Click here to visit the Internet Marketing for Newbies section of Cagora.

To get to the Internet Marketing for Newbies forum, click on "Interact" in the menu and then on "forum".

Even if you aren't planning to run a highly interactive site, I still recommend you head there in addition to getting familiar with other legal resources regarding running an online business.

According to the Citizen's Media Law Project (CMLP):

"The mission of the CMLP is to provide legal assistance, education, and resources for individuals and organizations involved in online and citizen media. We also provide research and advocacy on free speech, newsgathering, intellectual property, and other legal issues related to online speech.

We seek to build a community of lawyers, academics, journalists, and others who are interested in facilitating citizen participation in online media and in protecting the legal rights of those engaged in speech on the Internet."

Click here to visit the Citizen's Media Law Project.

The main thing someone new to running an online business would probably want to look at would be the free report on 18 different internet business models which you can get by signing up for the free SparkPlugU newsletter.

If you want to know more about eCommerce, affiliate marketing, freelancing, blogging, or even marketing your crafts in a web 2.0 world, then this guide will help you get started with a plan of action.

Click here to grab the free report covering 18 different interent business models by subscribing to SparkPlugU's free newsletter.

Now onto the sister site – SparkPlugging.

Wendy Piersall – the Founder and CEO of SparkPlugging started SparkPlugging as eMomsAtHome.com. However, as stated in their "about page" they had one "tiny" problem:

They were MUCH more than just moms (and dads) running businesses working from home. As stated on SparkPlugging's "about" page:

"We were entrepreneurs, telecommuters, moonlighters, freelancers, consultants, bloggers, tech geeks, artists, media professionals, marketers, stay at home parents, authors, podcasters, WAHMs, & WAHDs, and we didn’t want to hear the same old crap about running a business from home."

Click here to take advantage of the tremendous amount of free information at SparkPlugging.

Luckily, he runs a high quality and free online forum where newbies and experts both hang out. If you are new to online marketing – and affiliate marketing specifically – this can be a great place for you to visit on a regular basis.

If you're new or "newish" to affiliate marketing you'll want to find the section that says "Getting Started – for New Affiliates… A chance for newcomers to ask questions and for old hands to feel smart."

If this sounds like a good fit for you, click here to visit Allan Gardyne's high-quality affiliate forum.

However, there's still a great lesson in all of this, so I thought it would be useful to keep the rest of the post about my AblakeForum mishapp.

Update: 5/11/2009 – Note: I still highly recommend the AblakeForum – especially if you can read posts by Mike Young the lawyer there and Chris Elliott the copywriter and of course Anthony Blake himself.

However, an interesting thing happened today…I haven't logged in since I posted this recommendation of the Ablake Forum. I tried to login today and was greeted with the following message:

If you can't see the image, it says:

"An Error Has Occurred! Sorry Guest, you are banned from using this forum!
Because you're a fucking spammer. Claim yourself ASSHAT! We warned you, now you are banned and nuked."

Since I haven't even logged in for months I'm not sure how I could have spammed the forum, so the message is puzzling at best. But it's a good lesson to not worry about things that are out of your control AND to always be aware what things ARE or aren't in your control.

In this case, it's not worth the time to even find out if there was a legitimate reason for being banned (i.e., maybe someone I hired to do some work decided to post my link in their forum even though I specifically don't allow people to do forum postings for me).

For some reason I haven't logged into the AblakeForum in a long time. I don't know why. It's a very good forum and I just noticed they have an section about online legal issues for internet marketers.

I used to hang out there all the time before they moved to the new forum format, but somehow when they switched it didn't stick.

Anyhow, I do recommend it as a good place to visit on a regular places. You'll find it's a quite different atmosphere than the WarriorForum, although it's hard to explain what that means exactly.

• Click here to visit the Ablake Forum.
• Click here to visit Chris Elliot's CopyWritingRush.com
• Click here to visit Mike Young Law

Addendum: The ABlakeForum ban had the unexpected consequence of finally explaining why long ago one of my messages at Michael Green's HowToCorp forum was flagged.

I had posted a question there asking people how they thought the site HomeStarRunner was monetizing their site…and apparently the site had changed since I last looked at it, so it so some of the ways were fairly obvious.

I was puzzled as to why my post was flagged as possible spam as I've never had any monetary interest in the HomeStarRunner site.

However, it  dawned on me today that just as I prohibit anyone else other than me from posting in forums or on blogs in my name or my site's name that is not true for everyone…meaning…

That Michael Green from HowToCorp may have thought I was either trying to build links to their sites, or just drive traffic to their site as a paid "forum spammer" neither of which was the case.

You can see the original post from 2004 – yes…2004!

What is the HomeStarRunner Secret?

Anyhow, my only word of caution about entering the WarriorForum is that you lurk for at least a week so you can understand the protocol. One of the reasons it's such a great forum is that it doesn't tolerate nonsense – at least not very much of it.

Please read the rules at the forum. That will help you avoid trouble. I don't mean to scare you as it's a great forum and you should definitely join.

If you do, you might post a comment here telling me what your username is there. Mine is MarkQuinn as my biz partner and I share an account there.

Click here to visit the WarriorForum.

The Thirty Day Challenge is about making your first $10 online. While $10 may not seem like a significant amount, many people who make their living full-time online (including me) will tell you that the big turning point for them was when they actually made their first $1 online. After that everything seems more real and possible and The Thirty Day Challenge understands this.

I should warn you of one thing, though. It is a lot of information to digest.

Click here to visit The Thirty Day Challenge.

SelfStartersWeeklyTips is a legitimate place to get online marketing training.

It's a great community to hang out in and a place where many successful online marketers got their start. I remember hanging out there quite a bit when I first started online.

In addition to the amazing amount of free, valuable internet marketing training you'll get their, you'll also have another resource to help you weed throught the confusing array of home business and internet marketing courses by visiting the "Testimonials and Product Reviews" section of the forum.