Well....to be honest, I was going to go through this thread as it's added to and update my original post to include all the links added by others. It seems that there are more and more folks looking to start up without "legally" starting up. I need to see about $2000 - $4000/month in sales before I go out and set up with the state and federal offices.
I've started businesses in the past without having a semi-steady income stream only to find myself burned at the end of the year thanks to taxes and such that I could have avoided by taking a little more time to go through the "official" process of registering as a business. I'm sure it's my own ignorance, but still....some of us don't want to register legally as a business while we're still feeling the whole thing out.