Bradley

Right now im actually running my own server at my house. I've got a computer with linux installed and all the app's needed to run a website (Apache, Perl, PHP, Bind, FTP, MySQL, etc..). All im using is an empty computer I found, then I just added simple things to it (Ethernet card, harddrive, mouse/keyboard, cdrom). Then I looked around and found a pretty good monitor and hooked it all up. Then you just have to install linux on there, get everything you'll need running, and then its really fun because there's noone telling you how much space you can use, and if theres a problem, you just walk over to the computer and handle it . It doesnt have to be very strong if you're just using it for yourself, no dual-xeon processors 3gb ram needed. Ive got a really old pentium in there and about 64mb ram lol. But for that it works pretty fast for hosting myself and 2 other websites on it. The only thing I noticed that killed it is when I tried to install a wiki on there (wow did that thing go slow then). The only cost you'll need is to buy a domain name (you can get some for about $1.99 for a year now, its extremely cheep), the internet cost (I dont have any special packages, just Yahoo! DSL, I recommend cable though), and the electricty cost (its not a lot but its gotta stay on 24/7 for a good server .
The only trickey thing is finding out how to install inux/apps if you have never had any experience with that os before. A good site is howtoforge and they've got plenty of tutorials of how to install linux and everything you'll ever need. Ask me any questions if you have them
And as for the e-mail accounts, if you set up one of these you can supply as many email accounts as you want, just make sure you have the hard disk space

Ive installed linux on 3 diffrent ipods and it worked great on all of them. For anyone who has a video there is a color gameboy emulator out, it works great, its about 90% the speed of a real game, but still its fun. Its really simple to install just go to the link and follow the instructions http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/. If you have one of the greyscale ipods there is a version for you too, just go here http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/. Have fun