CSS General Tips and Tricks, Please if you can add to this, thanks

Question

I thought of some general guidelines in CSS and XHTML, please feel free to add some more if you think i missed, thanks in advance !
No Empty Divs
Use text-indents in hyperlinks for images and images background so that the  div does not remain empty
Even if you have a division marker that contains a backgrounds and is  embedding another inner-container (or any other reason), use a  text-indent:-9999px so that it does not appear empty.  This misuse has led to  many misinterpretations by search engines
Validate your codes on W3C
Even if there is a warning, there’s always this possibility to wipe it out  and write the right piece of code for it.
No Ids! Classes & inheritance
We’re in 2010 now ladies, things have changed and now it’s the new era.  Like  for me, it was quite a bite that day I got those slaps (uhh… let’s call that  e-slaps for the sake of this article) from my boss, who clearly mentioned the  important generic methodologies of using inheritance techniques in everything we  do… And that included CSS my oh my..
Besides, even if you are using ids, make sure that they are unique and that  they are not being duplicated elsewhere on your page.  That’s the good thing  with the W3C validator: it doesn’t miss those
Comment your lines of codes
There are many advantages for this, the major one I’m considering is to help  situate the programmer in line who will be taking your codes elsewhere.  It’s a  form of diplomacy, hence good practice.
No Styling in your html pages: out!
It’s better to transfer all the related style, with comments alongside on  your generic style sheet
Insert Images on web pages only if necessary
Whenever there is an opportunity not to insert an image as an <img  src>, do it; the best practice is to load it as a background image and if  possible use write any text that’s ever found on the image instead of importing  the image from photoshop or any app you’re using down to tyou
Anti-aliasing of gif images for better image  quality
I have this luck of having a chief who knows quite a sleek stuffs in  photoshop and image rendering techniques and that includes gif images.
Integrators love gifs: light, minimal use of colors.. when they’res no  curves in any way, but what about transparency ?
There are possibilities to avoid the use of pngs, which are usually heavier  and take quite some time to load.  Sometimes when gifs are being exported, codes  or designers forget the background image on which the gif will be laid onto.   That is why anti-aliasing techniques are very important for keeping the design  intact.
use overflow: hidden instead of clear:both
More information can be found on this link:
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/clearing.html
To brief a bit, using clear is like ol’ school teaching stuff which was the  fast-driven solution while the overflow:hidden seems to satisfy the major  browsers like MSIE, FFx , Chrome, etc…
Minimise the use of style sheets
Avoid using different style sheets for different browsers. Use one generic  style sheet,  unless you have different themes for different pages, but that  depends.   All this creates confusion and that might also mean you are not be  using the right html codes and the right css styles
To minimise the use of multiple style sheets, use:
i.e. <!–[if IE  6]><div id=”IE6″><![endif]–>
Validate your css codes on  http://jigsaw.w3.org
Jigsaw is the CSS passport for integrators.  I never knew it, but now O I  know !
It’s the haven.  The hide in our line of business.  It’s what keeps our ego  hmmm strong and heavily proud, the reason why integrators are so needed in the  web business.
* Squeak *
Always have this final habit to validate your css in the following  link
http://jigsaw.w3.org/ to make sure that you are in line with your css  standards.  Even if there are warnings, that would mean you are wrongly  interpreting your css codes or that some styles have been duplicated here and  there.
Conclusion
That’s all for now folks.  I think , whenever I’ll have some more time, I’d  probably create a CSS tips and tricks Part 2, cos amending what’s already there  would sound so cheap and it’s not like facebook, uhh Sheran changed that  article, etc..
It’s good to have some feedbacks and all, well, that’s probably interesting  to know what’s out in the CSS jungle, so jot in some lines, criticise, be blunt  and bold and don’t hesitate to contact me (except ma okes at work, you know who  you are, ladies) for any info ya need
À La Prochaine !

Answer 1

use CSS, it will save you time no matter how much DW does things automatically for you
if you don't know how it's done, ask or view source. css is client side code and can be viewed.
use divs instead of tables for layouts
firefox has a great plugin called HTML Validator (http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/). you don't have to keep going to the w3c website to validate. when viewing your page within firefox it will validate it and tell you any errors and warnings. saves me a lot of time. it's also great if you're development environment is behind a firewall - you won't have to view source, copy & paste onto w3c validator. they don't have support for html5 yet
this could be more of style and preference but i use multiple files of css. usually 2 or 3. one is for the layout (layout.css), one is for forms (form.css) and one for display data. anything more can become more work when it's time to make any changes, especially with multiple people working on the same project
create a standard workflow. naming conventions for file names, class names, etc.
i'm not sure you can get away from those IE specific css. i've tried a campaign at work to not support IE so that we become fully compliant with the web but unfortunately, IE still has a lot of users. what we've done is support IE but the latest versions only. M$ is at least getting better with being compatible.
view the page in firefox and IE. if they work, then you should be fine with the other browsers. as a developer, it's my responsibility to ensure that any user whether mac or pc can view the website - as long as they are running the "latest" version of the browser. latest as in what the software developer still supports.
well that's my tips, tricks and a little pet peeve here and there