The new menu system alleviates a lot of these problems and gives us easy control over our menus. With multiple menu support, drag and drop ordering and easy title changes it is hard to imagine needing much more.

The new system even addresses a challenge I have always had with Wordpress, and that is of using link descriptions. Link descriptions typically are one or two lines of descriptive text below a primary navigation item used to  describe the section or link. They are a nice visual touch and can really enhance usability in a significant way.

Until now there wasn't a great way to do this, even with the use of plug-ins. Even with the use of custom fields and some hacking it was never perfect.

The new menu system allows us to do a bit more customization to our menus, such as adding custom classes, titles and even including a description.

Working with Link Descriptions

The first step is of course enabling custom menu support through your theme. This can be done with the following simple code in your functions.php file:

add_action( 'init', 'register_menus' );
     function register_menus() {
           register_nav_menus(
                array(
                     'primary-menu' => __( 'Primary Menu' )
                 )
            );
      }

You will then find a "Menu" link in your appearance tab with in the Wordpress administration interface. Once clicked on make sure that you turn on "link description" with in the Screen Options.

At this point we can now define where we would like our menu to display in our theme by adding the following function to our theme files:

<?php wp_nav_menu( array( 'theme_location' => 'primary-menu' ) ); ?>

This will output the menu with our defined order and menu titles. It won't however output the description by default, in order to do so we will have to take advantage of the $walker function with in Wordpress.

This is done by creating a custom class in our functions.php, such as the following:

class My_Walker extends Walker_Nav_Menu
{
	function start_el(&$output, $item, $depth, $args) {
		global $wp_query;
		$indent = ( $depth ) ? str_repeat( "\t", $depth ) : '';

		$class_names = $value = '';

		$classes = empty( $item->classes ) ? array() : (array) $item->classes;

		$class_names = join( ' ', apply_filters( 'nav_menu_css_class', array_filter( $classes ), $item ) );
		$class_names = '';

		$output .= $indent . '<li id="menu-item-'. $item->ID . '"' . $value . $class_names .'>';

		$attributes  = ! empty( $item->attr_title ) ? ' title="'  . esc_attr( $item->attr_title ) .'"' : '';
		$attributes .= ! empty( $item->target )     ? ' target="' . esc_attr( $item->target     ) .'"' : '';
		$attributes .= ! empty( $item->xfn )        ? ' rel="'    . esc_attr( $item->xfn        ) .'"' : '';
		$attributes .= ! empty( $item->url )        ? ' href="'   . esc_attr( $item->url        ) .'"' : '';

		$item_output = $args->before;
		$item_output .= '<a'. $attributes .'>';
		$item_output .= $args->link_before . apply_filters( 'the_title', $item->title, $item->ID ) . $args->link_after;
		$item_output .= '<span>' . $item->description . '</span>';
		$item_output .= '</a>';
		$item_output .= $args->after;

		$output .= apply_filters( 'walker_nav_menu_start_el', $item_output, $item, $depth, $args );
	}
}

This will add the description with in a span element when we tweak our template code to the following:

<?php
       $walker = new My_Walker;
	wp_nav_menu(array(
                'theme_location' => 'primary-menu',
		'walker' => $walker
	));
?>

Tada, now we can have menu descriptions such as on this Buddypress project we worked on here.

Now pair Google Analytics with another free (and this time open source) solution like Wordpress and well, it is hard not to get a warm fuzzy feeling.

What you may not realize is that you can get a lot more out of this Google and Wordpress pair than simply sticking the tracking number into the footer. There are quite a few rocking Google Analytics plugins that really kick up the functionality of your Google Analytics up a notch. Check them out.

1. Google Analyticator

This is my favorite plug-in in this area. Not only does it add the javascript needed to start tracking your site, it turns your Wordpress site into a tracking monster! Rather than just tracking the normal "default" elements it also covers:

• Outbound link tracking of all links on the page, including links not managed by WordPress
• Download link tracking
• Event tracking with outbound links / downloads instead of the old pageview tracking method

It also has plenty of great additional features such as a dashboard widget, front-end visitor widgets, localization and more...

Download Google Analyticator Here

2. Ultimate Google Analytics

This plug-in is on par with Google Analyticator in that not only will it put the necessary google analytics javascript on every page, but it also will track outbound links, downloads and mailto: links. While the default configuration will work for 90% of the users it pays to go through and customize it for your own needs, everything is customizable for your specific situation or need.

The plugin is highly configurable. Read trough the list of features below to get a feeling of what this plugin can do. You can enable and disable all features individually, although the default configuration will suffice for 90% of the users.

Download Ultimate Google Analytics Here

3. RSS Link Tagger for Analytics

On many blogs the conversion point is getting new subscribers. Even with services like feedburner you don't always know what is most effective in getting new subscribers as there is no clear way to track an RSS subscription. However with RSS Link Tagger you can actually track your RSS feed using Google analytics to get a better idea as to what types of articles and posts are most effective in recruiting new subscribers.

Download RSS Link Tagger Here

4. Google Analytics for WordPress

Much like Ultimate Google Analytics and Google Analyticator this plugin automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and other downloads. It even lets you track Adsense clicks! This plugin is great for tracking downloads as it allows you to specify what types of file prefixes should be used as downloads.

Download Google Analytics for Wordpress Here

5. Google Analytics Dashboard

This would be my favorite plugin for client sites. Rather than trying to teach your clients how to login and use Google Analytics (which is an extra step and cumbersome) this plugin puts a view of your analytics data right from your Wordpress dashboard.

Even for savvy users this plugin is a great way to keep track of your sites performance with out having to log into Google Analytics every day.

Download Google Analytics Dashboard Here

One of my main issues with most content management systems is that they are simply too large, bloated and complicated for 90% of the sites out there. They focus too much on functionality and not how it is executed. The result is bloated code, poor administrative interfaces and complicated configuration. With Wordpress this is not the case, out of the box you can build and manage a simple site and when needed you can extend it to do anything from run a social network, do e-commerce or work as a full functioning web application.

In order to fully harness Wordpress for my projects (and my company projects) it is critical that I have a clear and efficient understanding of what Wordpress can do. From there it is also important that my employees have the capability to develop with the Wordpress platform to make this happen. Now I could come up with a training program or try one of the off the shelf books (which I have read through and were not impressed), but I have found Digging Into Wordpress to be an excellent solution.

What You Get

Digging into Wordpress is available as a PDF download or as a print version. If you are like me and have no problem reading through a book on screen, the PDF version is an easy reference guide and has the added feature of searching and chapter click through. However I am sure there are plenty of people who would rather have a hard copy to reference while they are working away on their computer.

The book is a whopping 434 pages of content and on a broad level covers critical Wordpress concepts such as:

• How to set things up
• Building themes
• Keeping sites secure and optimized
• Making the most of Wordpress

More specifically the book has chapters on:

• Wordpress basics (how to install, optimize and maintain it)
• Setup and optimization (permalinks, categories and tags, publishing, users, themes and plugins)
• Building Wordpress themes (Theme files, page views, header, the loop, comments, sidebar, foots, functions & search)
• Advanced theme design (customizing the loop, sidebars, footers, side content, child themes, styling, widgets)
• Functionality (plugins, custom functions)
• Wordpress as a CMS (custom content, page templates, dynamic menus, roles & permissions, great Plug-ins)
• Working with RSS Feeds
• Comments and customizations
• Search Engine Optimization (duplicate content, permalinks, appeasing google, tracking)
• Maintenance (security, comment spam, upgrades, backups)
• Bonus Tricks (option panels, free themes)
• Wordpress Updates

As you can see the book is packed with just about anything you could possibly want to know about Wordpress. Well Beyond what I had the time to read and learn about my first time through, but I am sure there will be instances where I will need to know how to really customize my RSS output and this book will be the perfect reference manual to do so.

The Excellent Points

There are several incredible parts of this book regardless of your skill level. Having used Wordpress for about four years now I have gotten to a fairly high level of fluency, however I still found lots of great information about how to do things that I either didn't know how to do or wasn't even aware was possible. However there is plenty of great content for beginners as well, I was able to hand the book over to one of my new interns and by the end of a few days she had developed her first Wordpress theme. Considering it was the first "non-static" site she had ever worked with this was extremely impressive.

Additionally the book does a great job of not only teaching the technical elements of Wordpress, but also the practical elements as well. You will learn how to maintain, protect and optimize your blog for faster page loads, higher rankings and more stability. All of these are critical elements to the success of a site after it has been developed and launched (the longer portion of the site life cycle).

What Could Be Improved

The book is a huge wealth of information, that is for sure. However I wonder if this made it difficult to organize. There were more than a few points where the book seemed to jump around a bit in terms of the content and how it all fit together. The first chapter for example, seems to cover a bit of a variety of different topics that range from beginner to advance despite it's label of "Wordpress Basics." That being said I would rather have more information and have to hunt a little bit for it than getting a book that left me searching the internet for what I need to know.

Overall...

If you do ANYTHING in Wordpress you really should purchase this book. You will not find a more comprehensive reference guide or set of tutorials anywhere. The small cost of $27 will be outweighed by the time saved and the increased capabilities you will gain by reading through and understanding the book.

I have had to go the extra mile on a few projects in regards to security and Wordpress, and after a clients website got hacked it made sense to compile all the methods of securing Wordpress into one single document. Since Wordpress is open source, I figure I might as well make the document open source as well.

You can download the PDF version of the document here, or simply read through it below.

Server Level Security

1. Disallow bots from scanning the important Wordpress directories

By using the Robots.txt file it is always a good idea to block the wp-content, wp-admin, etc... directories. This can be done by adding the following line:

Disallow: /wp-*

2. Turn off directory browsing.

Many servers by default allow you to browse the listing of files with in a given directory. You may have come across this before when a page is missing or there is no index to a directory. The server outputs a listing of the files in the directory instead. This is particularly important in regards to plug-ins. If someone can see which plugins you have on your site they might be able to see which ones are venerable.

This can be done through your .htaccess be using the code below:

Options All -Indexes

3. Protect your wp-admin folder

The wp-admin folder is a critical security point with in Wordpress. Denying access to this folder (as well as the wp-config.php file) goes a long way to ensuring that your Wordpress site is secure.

This can be done in several ways and you may want to do all of them.

3.1 Limit access to your wp-admin folder by IP Address

If you know that you are on an IP Address that doesn’t change you can prevent any intruders by blocking every IP but your own. The drawback here is that if you are traveling, are off site or trying to update the site from a location that is not your typical one you will be denied access as well.

This can be done through your .htaccess by using the example code below:

<Limit GET POST PUT>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 12.345.67.890
allow from 890.67.345.12
</Limit>

3.2 Limit access to your wp-admin folder through password protection

While not as secure as the IP Address method, it can be extremely effective to simply password protect your folder on the server level. This can also build upon the security enhancement of 3.1. For example if someone is able to spoof your IP address they still would need to hack your password to break in.

The easiest way to setup password protection is through the Wordpress htaccess Password Protect Plugin.

3.2 Limit access to your wp-admin folder by hiding it

There is no reason that your wp-admin folder has to be called wp-admin. Hackers look for this administration folder in this location. One easy way to eliminate hacking of your site and administration area is simply rename the folder to something else. Simple enough?

4. Protect your wp-config.php file

The password to your database is stored in plain, readable text in your configuration file (wp-config.php). Access to your database gives hackers control over your complete site, so to say you need to protect it is an understatement. The first and most obvious step is to ensure the permissions are set correctly.

Some servers set the wrong permissions by default which allows anyone who wants to the ability to read the contents of that file.

The permission should be set using SSH or through an FTP client to 640

chmod 640 wp-config.php

Additionally you can actually move the wp-config.php out of the main Wordpress directory and still have everything function properly. This way hackers don’t know where to look for the file. For example if your wp-config.php is located in /public_html/blog/wp-config.php you could move it to /public_html.

5. Install the 3G Blacklist

A lot of Wordpress installations are hosted on an Apache server. If your site is on an Apache server then you can improve the security (not just Wordpress) by installing the 3G Blacklist. The 3G Blacklist is:

“a concise, lightweight security strategy for Apache-powered websites...the 3G Blacklist serves as an extremely effective security strategy for preventing a vast majority of common exploits. The list consists of four distinct parts, providing multiple layers of protection while synergizing into a comprehensive defense mechanism.”

Find instructions and usage information on the 3G Blacklist here.

Wordpress Level Security

1. Remove the Wordpress version number from the META tags

Some hackers target specific versions of Wordpress because of known open venerability's.  An easy way to prevent your site from coming up as a target is to simply remove any indicators of the software version.

In older version of wordpress your theme file would hav the following code in the header.php that generates a simple tag that outputs the current version:

<meta content="WordPress &lt;?php bloginfo(’version’); ? /&gt;" name="generator" />

You can prevent this from being an issue by simply deleting that line of code.

Newer versions of Wordpress output the version automatically through the wp_head(); function. You can remove these by installing the Secure Wordpress plugin.

2. Disable the “Admin” account

By default Wordpress creates an “admin” account every time you install it. While the passwords are generated randomly it is never a good idea to let people know the login of your most powerful account. Because all Wordpress installations have the same username for the master account you are doing just that.

Simply changing the username from admin to something less obvious will improve the security of your site.

This will have to be done through the database as Wordpress won’t let you change or remove the account through the administration interface. The account is located in the wp_users table, and you can simply change the account name, display name, etc... to that of your choosing.

3. Change the Wordpress table prefix

All installations of Wordpress use the same name for all of the tables on the database. The problem with this is that if a hacker is able to use a SQL injection exploit they know exactly which tables to change data on. If you use an alternative prefix when you install the software this is prevented.

Already have a Wordpress installation? The WP Security Scan plugin can help you switch.

4. Use secure connections when connecting to the ADMIN pages

To prevent data being intercepted between your computer and the server hosting your website you can actually force a secure connection to all of the administration panels. This will require that you purchase and implement a SSL certificate from your host first, but once you have done this you can add the following code to your wp-config.php file to activate secure administration:

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);

5. Use Security Keys

Wordpress doesn’t require that you take advantage of their “security key” tool that better encrypts cookies, there by better protecting your passwords. Using security keys is a simple process where you generate a key and make some simple modifications to the wp-config.php file.

You can generate Wordpress security keys on this website.

Wordpress Security Plugins

1. Login Lockdown Plugin

This simple plugin will record the IP address of every failed login attempt. If there are too many failed attempts from one IP address the login function will be disabled for that IP range. This prevents brute force password break-ins.

You can download the plugin here.

2. Invisible Defender Plugin

This plugin protects registration, login and comment forms from spambots by adding two extra fields hidden by CSS. The idea behind Invisible Defender is simple: SPAMBOTs either fill every form field they find (generic spambots) or fill WordPress-specific fields only (spambots which will recognise WP or are targeting WP only).

You can download the plugin here.

3. Maximum Security

You can perform and identify a lot of the problems outlined in this document automatically through this full featured and robust plugin. It can identify permission issues and has an intrusion protection system.

You can download the plugin here.

4. Secure Wordpress

Little help to secure your WordPress installation: Remove Error information on login page; adds index.html to plugin directory; removes the wp-version, except in admin area.

You can download the plugin here.

5. Secure Admin

Secures Login and Admin pages using Private or Shared SSL.

You can download the plugin here.

Security Best Practices

There are plenty of good security practices that you should follow that are not specific to Wordpress.

1. Pick your passwords wisely

The first step to being secure is to ensure your passwords are well formed. A strong password contains upper and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks and are not a common dictionary word. This should be tested on every aspect of your website from your SFTP / FTP account, database password and user accounts.

You can test your passwords using this handy website.

2. Only use secure connections

Most website owners and developers use FTP connections to access the files on their server. This is all good and fine except that the transmission is not secure and is open to security holes. Instead setup an SFTP account which will encrypt your connection and prevent stolen information.

3. Keep your software up-to-date

Any software should be updated as frequently as possible. Updates often fix security holes among other things (performance enhancements, new functionality, etc...) This certainly is the case with Wordpress. Now that the system has automatic upgrades there is no excuse to have out of date software.

This is not limited to the Wordpress core software either, you should also upgrade your plugins as often as possible as well.

4. Backup often

While it is not going to directly improve the security of your site, the only thing worse than getting your site hacked is getting it hacked with no way of restoring it. You should not only backup the actual files of the site but the database as well.

With the WP-DB-Backup plugin you can automate this process and even have it e-mail a copy of the backup to you on a regular schedule.

You can download the plugin here.

Have a hard core an intensive Wordpress site? You can even backup the important parts of your Wordpress installation to Amazon S3 servers through the WP S3 Backups.

You can download the plugin here.

5. Secure your MySQL Database

Not specific to Wordpress but you can make a lot of strides to improving the security of your MySql database server. I won’t go into the specific details in this document but you can get more than enough information from this detailed website.

Anything Else?

Did I miss something? Have any better ways to perform any of the security items I mentioned? Feel free to leave them in the comments and I will update the post!

To say that the golden rectangle is powerful is an understatement. Powerful and skilled designers can use this ratio to improve their designs dramatically, and what is amazing about it is that people won't be able to directly place their finger on how or why the design is so effective.

The Golden Rectangle Explained

The golden rectangle is a rectangle with its sides in the 'Golden Ratio' or 1 : 1.618. Where most people get this wrong with they might account for the ratio to divide a canvas horizontally (ie: into two columns) but they don't account for the fact that the ratio also specifies a height (vertical divisions). Failing to account for the vertical ratios will reduce the impact and effect of using this tool for visually pleasing designs.

The Photoshop Guide

To make it easier to use this principal we have created a simple tools that lays out a golden rectangle and it's divisions (on all four corners) that you can overlay onto any of your designs. While it is originally designed for a 960 pixel wide canvas, it was created using vector shapes so it can be easily re-sized to any dimension with out losing any quality.

It also is organized based on folders so you can hide / show any portion of it to best fit your design needs.

Downloads and Suggestions

I am open to all suggestions, thoughts or improvements. I am releasing this under the creative commons, so if you choose to post it somewhere or repurpose it please do the right thing and at least attribute me with a link (or two).

Download the golden selection PSD guide here and let us know what you think!

Having tried so many different content management systems (not to make it sound like I am a CMS whore, although I probably am) I have come across features and functionality that I feel would be extremely useful to integrate Wordpress. Silverstripe's simple page focused navigation lead me to develop the dashboard pages plugin, which makes it easy to sort and find the page you are looking to edit or manage off of the homepage rather than having to click to find it.

What I Look For in a CMS and How it Applies to Wordpress

There are really only a few primary criteria in what I look for in a CMS, so it is shocking that so many content management systems get it wrong. I always focus on:

• User friendliness to a non tech savvy user
• Capabilities with plug-ins
• Ease to template and configure
• Quality of XHTML code delivered

Out of all of those items I would say being user friendly is probably item number one. This is primarily because I really, really, really dislike having to do tech support phone calls on how to do X, Y or Z on a site. I also really, really dislike long CMS training sessions.

So maybe it is born out of selfishness, but a lot of the plugins that I develop are directly related to making Wordpress easier to use for the average website owner. Out of the box I feel Wordpress is simple and user friendly, however a bit too blog focused when it comes to using it as a primary CMS tool. This isn't really a criticism because Wordpress is a blogging platform first and CMS second — however that doesn't mean we shouldn't look to improve where we can.

CMS Dashboard

I have run into a handful of content management systems that make the most common actions so big and obvious no one could miss them. This is one major focus I feel the dashboard of Wordpress lacks. A majority of the Wordpress dashboard is on plug-ins, news, quick posts, comments, etc... all things that are not very important when it comes to managing an average website. Sure the menu on the left gives you access to all of the major items but there is no emphasis on common tasks and it is easy to skip over an important element because it is hidden amongst everything else.

CMS dashboard puts a widget on your Wordpress dashboard with large icons and links to the most common tasks your users will perform including:

• Add / manage posts
• Add / manage pages
• Add / manage users
• Add / manage widgets
• Manage settings

This way you will never get a call asking how to add a user or change a widget. It also will speed up the time it takes to perform tasks and lead to a better CMS experience.

Download or Read More about CMS Dashboard

Editor Tabs

Another design element I loved with Silverstripe was the tabbed interface. Let's face it, there is a lot of controls you can add to any given page that is managed. Especially when you start working with page titles, meta tags, navigation text, custom fields, custom write panels, etc... If you use either the PODS or Flutter CMS plug-ins you are likely to end up with editing pages that have so many meta boxes you have lots of scrolling up and down to simply make an alteration and then publish the page.

This is because Wordpress chooses to have additional control over a page done in a very flat manor. This works when you are simply managing a blog and don't have too much information to control, but once you start using Wordpress as a CMS it can be cumbersome.

I have had plenty of calls where a client wasn't aware they had control over a part of the site simply because it was so far down on the editor page.

Editor Tabs fixes this by automatically generating a javascript based tabbed navigation menu below the main content editor comprised of all the meta boxes that are on the page. That way you can easily flip through the different options, make a change and hit publish with out having to scroll all the way up and down. Additionally you have a clear idea of what can be controlled and you don't have to hunt for it.

Download or Read More about Editor Tabs

Feedback or Suggestions

I would love to hear any feedback or suggestions. I created these plug-ins because I would find them personally useful, however I am sure there are other small tweaks or alterations that could improve upon them.

In this situation where the primary focus are the pages the dashboard provides little value and the first action is always going to be clicking on the "Pages > Edit" navigational item. While not hard to learn or really time consuming, it is far from optimal. What would make much more sense is to have the dashboard focused on the tasks in which a client would perform 80% of the time.

So 3.7 DESIGNS whipped up a quick plugin that adds a dashboard widget listing all of the pages allowing for easy editing, deleting and management of content pages.

It is compatible with wordpress 2.7+ and simply needs to be activated, no configuration required.

You can download version 1.1 here

You've got to worry about a plethora of new issues that you've never thought about when you started doing this business: data asset management (DAM), you've got to build and code websites in no time fast, competition is fierce & everybody has their own web development company, you've got to keep your costs to a minimal, etc.

We're here to give you one of those ideas that'll do all of those things all at once. It's pretty easy to do.  It took me forever but i've finally discovered how to use SVN via TortoiseSVN (TortoiseSVN seems to be the easiest way to do SVN. Update, commit, merge files are easily executed with 2-3 clicks). If you do not have the pleasure of owning a windows machine there are many other SVN alternatives for MAC. Such a syncrosvn and versions.

What's TortoiseSVN?

TortoiseSVN is just a open source program that manages file versions. At 3 Point 7 Designs, we discussed some methods to collaborate and keep our files updated so redundancy didn't happen. At much of my discovery, we discovered that we can use this to also host some of our template files that we use to speed up development.

We decided that we'd host and feature our companies css/xhtml boilerplate to foster collaboration and version tracking on Google Code (code.google.com). In addition to this beautiful solution, it allows google to host our redundant files that we use for every project. Google hosting has got to be the best hosting on the internet. You can't beat anything faster than google; they practically run and own the internet.

We just link the files to the google code repository and voila we are up and running.

Featuring 3.7 Designs Boilerplate!

We're big fans of css frameworks. CSS frameworks are great providing quality control. It provides us the ability to get our job done quickly, efficiently and more consistently.

The 3.7 Design Boilerplate contains the file structure and the files needed to quickly start coding. It might take a while to get a hang of our id/class usages. Nonethless, it's pretty KISS and makes sense.

Folders Structure

The following are some folders and they're pretty self explanatory
/css - CSS files
/images - Images
/js - Javascript Files
/clientfiles - PSD, .ai, etc files go here
/concepts - concepts - currently and eventually will be moved to client files
/copy - contains word documents or text for the content of the website

CSS Files Explained

Reset.css - Some things that we commonly practice is resetting stylesheets so that they're all at a beginning point. This is something that Eric Meyer's blogged about.

Grid.css - We've added a set of grids that you can use. It's actually a gride from 960.gs. You're welcome to switch out any grid stylesheet here.

helper.css - This file gives you a running start if you're prototyping a page. You can quickly using classes move block elements around with margins or padding. An example class : "ml-5" adds 5px of padding to the left side. "mh-10" adds left and right padding. "padr-5" provides 5 px of padding on the right side, etc.

This file also contains the very important class: clearfix. If you're not familiar with it it just primarily solves the problems of container div's that don't totally addup the total height of all of the child containers.

main.css This file allows is to create a base file from the reset to provide some type of consistency and legibility to the type. Often after type is reset the type is too small  to read.

style.css This last file you'll have to use locally because it'll be key and important in customizing your website. All the other files you can link from the google code repository. This file is the file that will contain your site specific and context specific css code.

Download Boilerplate: Latest 2.0.zip

Put it all together

With all these things put together we are providing you with a starting point. If you don't like the way we do things; that's totally understandable. We're hoping to inspire others to create their own or contribute to our project.

The best part of hosting your css files is that once you add more or append to your files it'll effect all the websites that might be linking to your files.

Hope this has been most helpful.