Hi everybody.. Please be patient with me as I am quite a "newbie"

I have a few questions... I thank You all in advance!! Please be as helpfull as possible..

1.)What is the BEST free hosting for a new business (we are talking small office/home office). Does it have banners or other advertising? Can it support flash,front-page,a free forum,etc.

2.)What do I need to do (& where would I go online to get it done) to offer e-mail services free to my customers on our website.. I know that there is everyone.net? But is it still free to use? What is your BEST suggestion?

3.)What is the BEST unified messaging system out there that is FREE? (I know of onebox.com/ & of ureach.com (only free for 30 days)..

4.) I want to Private-Label services for free... What are your suggestions? I know of urember.com/labelboy.com

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

as for the hosting it is not FREE but it is really cheap

and it comes with forum programs

as for the email i havent found any other than everone.net and as far as i know they arent free anymore

There is also http://www.bigmailbox.com - not for sure of the price or service anymore.. used them along time ago..

As for all that other free stuff, remember, you get what you pay for.

laterz..

Thanks.. I ll check out the sugestion & keep looking :D

Hosting is so cheap these days that it would be quite unprofessional to host a business on a free host. Well, that's my opinion anyway.

With a paid host, you can get much more support, features and reliability. For a newbie, the support is what you really need.

For emailing, you will have unlimited email account creation ability, so offering email accounts should not be a problem.

Free hosts generally do not last long which means that you will most likely have to be moving your site from host to host. This can have unwanted affects on your business and your visitors.

The other thing with some free web hosts is that you can suddenly find one day that they've changed their terms of service to where there's some giant ad banner across your front page :(

Not a good look for a business hehe

Like the other people said, hosting is so cheap these days - I mean there's companies offering good sized accounts (without even going to the REALLY cheap fly-by-night hosts) for between 6 and 10 dollars a month, so you're looking at like maybe $2 a week... For no ad banners, unlimited email aliases etc etc

Worth thinking about anyways :)

Heres the thing.. When I say small business.. this is what I am refering too..

Full time receptonist likes to make candy gift baskets..
So.. She decides to go and get a DBA for $10.00 & start a part time business, selling her baskets to family & friends.. & then going from there. She understands that by having a website she will be able to get her business out there, as she can't afford to quit her job.. So for the first 6 months to a year, she wants to be able to use free hosting that will give her what she needs, but she won't have to pay anything, as the whole kit & kaboodle of the business may never really take off..etc.

I provide free consulting for these people.. We are trying to find a really good small business hosting that we can get them setup with..
OR...
A way where we can give them the hosting free ourselves (as a resseler etc.) & then later on when they can afford it, charge them.. (The $5 was just an example). We are not tech people, & that is why we were wondering if say a server goes down, etc. who would they contact? (We know that if they have questions such as I can't login to my account, etc. that we would take care of that). If we go with the later (we set them up ourselves, so if they upgrade we make money) What are your suggestions?

It needs to be cheap! As we will giving this almost like a community service.. We will have about 6 new sites a month..
Please Help!!
Thank You!