One of the great debilitators in online business is simply the perceived (or real) lack of time. Business owners are used to moving forward. An online web presence can make them feel tied to an office chair learning skills they aren't sure they want to know.

It's not uncommon for those who deal in full time web design to have individuals contact them for a site design, but have absolutely no idea what they want. Furthermore when the designer questions them the response might be, "I don't know, just make it look nice."

Let's not forget the core values or mission of the business. Many business owners have no idea how to answer those kinds of questions. They may stare blankly for a moment or two and there's no more time for further deep thought so they go back to action - without answers.

In many cases it is possible to answer some of the questions needed, but it may require taking time away from a familiar setting. It may also require more time than you think you want to give.

If you can get to a place of concentrated contemplation you are likely to find yourself stripping ideas to their core to find out what your business is trying to accomplish and what your ultimate goals might be.

As with almost any project you can turn frustration around if you will just take the time to come to terms with your vision.

Sometimes we spend so much time 'doing' we never stop to ask the question, "Why?"

This process can be a bit like taking a bus that drives around the park. You keep looking at the flowers and the park bench and long to sit in the quiet shade of a tree and just absorb the calming atmosphere. You know they will have a positive effect on you, but for some reason you just can't seem to find the energy to get off the bus.

It seems to me there are some sites that are misguided or rarely guided that could benefit from the process of self-evaluation. These sites may look nice, but there is a sense of disconnection that may not be easy to identify, but it's fairly obvious to visitors.

Creative energy is at a minimum while business owners simply tackle what seem to be the most urgent details.

As more people gravitate to online business there needs to be a shift in the thinking of how one goes about doing business online. In many ways it can't be approached in the same way a traditional business is developed, yet that is typically the way many new web commerce ventures choose to tackle the subject.

You may discover your business will be more successful if you take some time for rigorous reflection. The time set aside can be a bit like an architect that takes the time to develop plans for a new building. You wouldn't expect the architect to simply tell a construction crew to, "Go out there and build - something."

Work at 'building' your online business in a comprehensive way. Your effort can develop a firm foundation for long-term success.

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.

In fact easy web programming languages are already here right under our noses. Awareness of easy alternatives to popular but more complex systems based on Apache, Perl, PHP, and Ruby and their frameworks is minimal because of marketing forces.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier but this promise has not been delivered to web developers especially. The page centered way that web applications are created forces programmers to tie many parts together with extra code that isn't needed in traditional (non-web) programming. The complexity of it all scares away the beginners and causes professional developers to be unproductive (and bald).

The popular web development culture advocates programming features like REST capability and stateless pages but these features actually complicate the development process. If you don't know what REST is, or what stateless pages are then you'll appreciate what I'm about to say: You shouldn't need to understand those ideas to create web applications. There are some programming systems which abandon these ideas, and in so doing they make web development simpler and even enjoyable. They also do receive a certain degree of disdain by the "establishment", but for those willing to think outside the box the benefits can be substantial for some kinds of web projects. This article will discuss some of these systems in short.

Seaside, http://www.seaside.st- The Seaside web development framework (also known as the Heretic web framework) is a system which provides almost a complete stack (provide your own database). It includes an HTTP server, automatic application sessions, transparent state management, live development and debugging, Ajax libraries and more.

Seaside developers code in the venerable Smalltalk language to build their applications. With a combination of an easy to use component-style page generation metaphor, support for cascading style sheets, and the powerful expressiveness of Smalltalk the Seaside developer enjoys tremendous productivity.

Seaside is an open source project with a liberal license and is available for both free and commercial Smalltalk platforms.

Run BASIC, http://www.runbasic.com- Run BASIC is a zero configuration web application server that features an extremely easy web development metaphor, suitable for the beginner. In one easy install it provides an HTTP server, automatic application sessions, transparent state management, tightly integrated BASIC programming language, inline CSS capability, graphics library, an XML parser and SQLite database support. Even with all the included functionality, the programmer is not confronted with a lot of complexity because of Run BASIC's built-in easy to use commands.

Run BASIC brings to the web the easy programming that BASIC has historically been known for. It is suitable for personal projects, educational situations, small business apps and more. There is an interactive version of the system hosted at the Run BASIC website so that anyone can try their hand at writing code. Cost: $59.95

Sun Labs Lively Kernel Project, http://research.sun.com/projects/lively- The Lively Kernel project is a web programming system developed at Sun by the inventor of the Smalltalk programming language. It is very cutting edge and very novel. It turns your web browser into a Javascript development environment and it includes a scalable vector graphics based windowing library. While this system may not be appropriate for some commercial websites, it is suitable for online games and educational curricula. Lively Kernel provides a kind of personal laboratory for building very dynamic applications that work in a browser.

Lively Kernel is supported in Safari and Firefox 2 and 3, but Safari is the recommended platform as of the writing of this article. It is licensed under the GPL2.