I simply want to post some screenshots to an online forum. The screenshots have been uploaded to Coffee Cup's file storage. If I view any of the images in storage, I see the URL for the image in my browser. I tried adding the link for the image to the UBBCode in the online forum and the image is linked and viewable. Is it ok to do it this way?

Most sites that don't want you to hot link will set their servers up to block it. The only problem with hot linking is that the image could be changed for a lets say a more unsuitable one and you wouldn't know it until you either went back across your post or you got band from a forum for posting bad content.

Yes it's ok to do it if you're linking from your own account. Linking from others (hence called Hot Linking) isn't a good idea as Eric mentions above, but I use my own server (not S-Drive) to do the same thing for screenshots and avatars etc. so as long as it's your own S-Drive account or server account then if "you" hotlink it's not a problem

most of the forums do not let that happen cause of the spammers..