Did you know that your css code could be slowing down your website? Did you also know that there is a free solution out there that can help you optimize or reformat your css code for speed and readability? This article is going to explain the benefits of optimizing your css code and the reasons why all web designers should be doing it. First we need to take into account the 2 reasons why you would want to reformat your css: readability and optimization.

Readability

Having nicely formatted css that easily readable is very helpful when you are developing a site. Most of us (me included) can get pretty sloppy when in a hurry to develop code, and a formatter can really help out to make it more readable.

On development teams where both Macs and PCs are used, sometimes line breaks are not read correctly across platforms and your css can end up all on one line. A formatter can help get your code looking pretty again.

Optimization

The opposite of readability is optimization. One problem with CSS is that it can get pretty file-size heavy when designing with it - especially on complex layouts. Optimizing your CSS will strip out all unnecessary characters and leave your CSS lean and mean.

Optimizing css is great to do once you've finished your site and don't plan to work on the design very much anymore.

The css formatter is a great tool because it can do both! You can format for readability while you are designing, optimize when you go live, and reformat it for readability if you ever need to work on it again. It's really a 'win win' thing to do.

There are two approaches to DIY Website Construction.

The first is to go about gathering and purchasing all of the components separately. The second is to buy a package that has all of the components and build your website yourself using the tools at your disposal.

When you think about what you will need for a DIY Website Construction, consider the following:

• Domain Name
• Web Hosting
• Templates or HTML program
• Keyword Research
• Content generation
• Autoresponder
• Sitemap submission
• Community or forum for support

If you don't do this on a regular basis, putting all of the pieces together for a DIY website may seem overwhelming.

But you don't need to put all of the separate components together to do your website yourself. You can buy a package that combines the best of everything.

One thing, though. Your best bet is NOT one of the domain name services. These services allow you to get a "brochure site" up quickly. But they don't help you generate a website that sells. And, unless you are putting up a website just for friends and family, there's no use in a website that doesn't sell.

Instead, you should look for a package company whose goal is to make your site sell. They're not there to sell lots of additional components, they want you to succeed.

For one price, you should get your domain name, web hosting, templates, keyword research, an autoresponder, email addresses, sitemap submission, statistics monitoring, and more. You also want to make sure that there is some level of support for the community whether it is phone based technical support or a welcoming forum.

If you're not ready to put all of the components of a DIY website together yourself yet, I recommend Site Build It for a package deal. It includes all of the necessary components and has a very supportive forum community.

To get the SBI package deal, click through to my Small Business Website Marketing Blog.

An SSL, or Secure Socket Layer, is technology that has been developed that allows web browsers and web servers to communicate over a secured connection.

The system uses cryptography that uses two keys to encrypt data  a public key known to everyone and a private or secret key known only to the recipient of the message. It’s a way to encrypt data, like credit cards numbers (as well other personally identifiable information), which prevents the "bad guys" from stealing your information for malicious intent.

The recently introduced SSL v3 improved upon SSL v2 by adding SHA-1 based ciphers, and support for certificate authentication. SSL v2 was known to be flawed in a variety of ways. Identical cryptographic keys are used for message authentication and encryption. The older version did not have any protection for the handshake, meaning a Man-in-the-middle downgrade attack could go undetected.

SSL has recently been succeeded by Transport Layer Security (TLS), which is based on SSL and is included as part of both the Microsoft and Netscape browsers and most Web server products. SSL uses the public-and-private key encryption system from RSA, which also includes the use of a digital certificate.

SSL-enabled client software can use standard techniques of public-key cryptography to check that a server's certificate and public ID are valid and have been issued by a certificate authority (CA) listed in the client's list of trusted CAs. Client authentication allows a server to confirm a user's identity. It’s a way to assure a client that they are dealing with the real server they intended to connect to. It can prevent any unauthorized clients from connecting to the server, preventing anyone from meddling with data going to or coming from the server.

From the very beginning SSL was designed to provide security between client and server, and to avoid any kind of 3-way man-in-the-middle attack.

Conceptually it’s quite simple: it negotiates the cryptography algorithms and keys between two sides of a communication, and establishes an encrypted tunnel through which other protocols (like HTTP) can be transported. It can also be easily passed through firewalls and proxies, as well as through NAT (Network Address Translation) without issues.