research one thing at a time, you can't just skim over it or you'll get yourself into trouble. Here's a quick overview.
Have you any domains already? If so post them.
Don't buy a single domain until you know what you're doing.
Decide early on what your plan is:
Is it to buy a nice sounding domain to hold onto until someone else who likes it wants to buy it off you.
Is it to buy a domain in a subject area that you're interested in and develop it into an authority site on that domain. (hint: see firestars posts for an excellent example)
Is it to buy a domain that will make you consistent money without you having to touch it, more than you pay for it. See parking revenues.
Is it to find a premium domain that someone you judge is selling cheaply and then sell it later to someone else for more (hint: see threads on phones.co.uk and lyrics.co.uk)
Are you a hot programmer (and think you can programme better than specialist security linux hackers that have been doing it for 10 years) and become a dropcatcher.
Or you can book their services to try to grab domains that people have decided not to renew (or have ignored renewal reminders for) and ask them to try to get domains for you. (hint: see caught.co.uk for excellent drop catching services.)
Then decide what you don't want to do:
e.g. buy a name that you think sounds nice. full stop.
buy trademarks and typos and try and profit off mistypes etc. then get sued and get a bad reputation.
buy a crappy name and try to flog it all over the forum multiple times and get banned from the forum.
We've all made / and are making mistakes but if you can sort out the above you are ahead of the curve.
Key terms to search for on this forum:
domain valuations .co.uk and .org.uk
domain sales lists
cheapest/best place to buy
cheapest/best place to host
seo tips
minisites
DRS
affiliates
Good luck
yesterday