timout happens often. firewall problem?

[chipvanderswank]

I'm new to making websites but updating seems to take a lot longer than it should. Is it normal for minor changes to a small site to take 10 minutes to update? It seems like like Cyberduck is republishing my entire website each time. I often get a message that says it has timed out and I have to start all over again. It suggests turning off firewalls but I don't know where to do that? Through Cyberduck, Firefox, or my Mac preferences?

Or should I just be looking for the files that I updated and publishing those? Right now I'm clicking my site folder and hitting upload. Is that my problem?