Hi there, I just barely starting messing with XOOPS and CMS and am looking for some standard guidelines. My ISP auto installed it for me and I'm just doing the content really. I want to have headlines on the frontpage for sites that myself and friends regularly frequent, but I see here and there that that can make your frontpage either really slow or not available if a news feed goes down. What are some safe settings for headlines and other modules (and cacheing) on the frontpage, or even on any page?

I really don't think there is a one size fits all solution here. As you eluded to, the headlines module is only as good as your worst news need. Here is is really upto the indiviual webmaster to find a balance between regular updates, or safety in case one of your feeds goes down. If it were me I'd be using a cache time of at least 1 hour.