I found that doing "favors" for those in need really pays off. I have made several websites for free. I made one for my sister, just because she was crying about her friends taking forever to make her one. I also re-designed a forum for a group I belong to just because I like the owner and hated the forum. Now both of them are plastering my name all over the place and recommending me for design jobs. I also don't feel threatened when I get PMs on message boards with questions about HTML codes and such. Something as simple as that has turned into a logo re-design job. I definitely agree that you need to be nice. There are too many people who work online (not just designers) who forget that they need to behave online as they would in a real life interview/job setting.