SGS Best Practices - Introduction

I'm going to be doing a series of posts on what I feel are some SGS Best Practices. I know a lot of people have asked a lot of questions on the forums, and I'm going to try to summarize some common questions and the answers to those question. Please remember that SGS is a moving target at the moment. Except for the SGS team, there really are no expects. So take everything I write with a grain of salt, and don't hesitate to question what it. Advice is always nice, but advice followed blindly leads you to ruin.