Google spends a metric shit ton of money on software development to properly index billions of web pages. They have an effective system in place to filter out garbage sites and analyze content. The best SEO advice in the world is:

1. Write clean, valid code that takes full advantage of what us nerds call semantic HTML. This means that the proper tags are used to mark up the proper text. H1 tags are very important headings, H2 tags are secondarily important, etc. TITLE tags are very important, keywords and descriptions are at the bottom of the importance list due to their overuse/misuse.
2. Keep it simple, Google has algorithms in place to prevent overuse of keywords, just sticking words in randomly is BAD. The best thing to do is to write with keywords in mind, but also write for a human reader. Their spider analyzes sentences and word counts more than any other piece of software in history. They know the difference between spamming keywords and properly formed relevant sentences.
3. Inbound links are golden. The link back to your site is a vote in favor of you. It should also contain keywords if possible and be on relevant sites that share similar keywords.
4. Register your domain name for as long as possible, they know when it was registered and when it will expire. If your site is registered for 5 years, it means you are in for the long haul, not some fly-by-night spammer.

All of this can be found, direct from the horse’s mouth, here: http://google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

A PHP framework is a set of functions and classes written in PHP that provides a starting point for developing web applications. Frameworks vary in directory structure, feature set, and documentation/support.

Why Use a PHP Framework?

As a PHP developer, it is frustrating to have to code projects over and over again from scratch. Many projects share common features such as mail functions, file handling, database connection, converting and translating text, and on, and on. By alleviating these common coding tasks, a good PHP framework allows a developer to focus more on custom business logic.

I am going to compare a few common PHP frameworks that I have used, feel free to add your own opinions and any frameworks I will inevitably miss.

Comparison of some PHP Frameworks I have used:

QCubed

QCubed is a community driven fork of Qcodo. I am personally no longer using Qcodo in favor of QCubed. QCubed has two main parts, ORM code generation and QForms. Generated code in QCubed follows the MVC pattern, although an actual controller is never generated. Generated code is very easily extended through basic object oriented PHP. A proper MVC file structure can be accomplished and QCubed can produce very high quality web applications. QCubed is not as well documented as some of the other frameworks, but its code generation is extremely powerful and growing stronger.

QForms are essentially PHP objects of HTML forms. They are defined by Mike Ho as “…stateful objects that maintain state from one post to the next.” QControls are PHP objects used to control form elements such as QTextbox, QPanel, QLabel, QButton, and QControls can even be combined and extended to create new QControls. Any QControl can have events assigned to it (click, hover, blur, etc.) that can trigger actions (PHP or JS functions), providing unlimited functionality using advanced AJAX.

ORM Code generation examines the data model and writes data model classes based on relationships it finds. It also writes draft HTML forms to provide basic CRUD functionality. A developer can simply run a codegen on a database and end up with a working application that can list, create, edit, and delete database entries without programming a single line. The drafts will need to be edited, of course, to provide custom logic, but they provide for very rapid prototyping.

More on QCubed.

Zend Framework

Extending the art & spirit of PHP, Zend Framework is based on simplicity, object-oriented best practices, corporate friendly licensing, and a rigorously tested agile codebase. Zend Framework is focused on building more secure, reliable, and modern Web 2.0 applications & web services. Zend is focused on using widely available web service APIs.
Features:

• An extensible and well-tested code base – easy to augment
• A flexible architecture – not locked-in to a rigid application structure
• No configuration files necessary to get up and running – or when maintaining and deploying your apps
• AJAX support through JSON – meet the ease-of-use requirements your users have come to expect
• Native PHP edition of the industry-standard Lucene search engine
• Zend Framework aims to be the premier place to consume & publish web services
• High-quality, object-oriented PHP 5 class library

More about Zend

CakePHP

Excellent documentation, simple to set up, easy to use and extend. Very well marketed, with cute names for things – For instance, applications built on CakePHP are considered “baked,” The CakePHP manual is called “The Cookbook,”  and the portal-like “Bakery” offers up-to-the-minute details about the CakePHP community.

I like CakePHP and it does its job very well. It is not as enterprise grade like Zend, but it is very thorough and the cute names have attracted a good sized community. Some pretty powerful sites are being “baked” using CakePHP.

CodeIgniter

A very lightweight and easy to implement framework. A good choice for newcomers to PHP and MVC. CodeIgniter provides a very thorough class library, as well as helper functions for common tasks. Not my favorite of the bunch, as I prefer QCubed’s code generation to the scaffolding of CodeIgniter and QCubed is just as robust in other aspects.

Zoop

Zoop has been in development since 2001 and in use for the last 6 years in a number of different production environments. While it predates the recent proliferation of PHP frameworks, it’s based on solid MVC principles, including separation of display, logic, and data layers. It’s designed to be efficient, modular, and extensible, striking a balance between lightweight and fully-featured. Zoop is the granddaddy of PHP frameworks, and as such is very solid. I would recommend Zoop to any experienced PHP programmer looking for a good MVC framework.

Symfony

Review Coming Soon…

Yii

Review Coming Soon…

Seagull

Seagull is a mature OOP framework for building web, command line and GUI applications. Licensed under BSD, the project allows PHP developers to easily integrate and manage code resources, and build complex applications quickly.

Many popular PHP applications are already seamlessly integrated within the project, as are various templating engines, testing tools and managed library code. If you’re a beginner, the framework provides a number of sample applications that can be customised and extended to suit your needs. If you’re an intermediate or advanced developer, take advantage of Seagull’s best practices , standards and modular codebase to build your applications in record time.

Once your development cycle is complete, use Seagull’s features for deploying and maintaining your apps locally and remotely. Check out the friendly and active Seagull community and see if Seagull’s a good fit for you.

Joomla

Joomla is considered firstly a CMS, but has been proven to provide a decent framework for PHP development. Current version is 1.5 and has come a long way since the days of Mambo.

Today, I think that Linux is ready. KDE still has a few bugs to iron out and I am not covering Gnome right now, but it is definitely able to compete with Windows and Mac for geeks and grandmas. All of the necessary office and productivity tools are available, Amarok is the best music player I have ever used, Firefox and Flash are easily installed with a few clicks, Wireless was set up instantly, I am extremely impressed with this release.

Now for the obligatory complaints.

KDE4 is still a bit buggy. I have full faith that they will iron out the majority of these quirks soon enough. The biggest complaint is lack of third party software support. There have been huge strides since the early days, but video game developers are not developing for OpenGL and Linux platforms. This is what will keep most people from switching. Also, many companies are using software that they have invested a lot of money into. The developers for many major software programs are not coding for Linux because there aren’t many users of Linux. This is a hard loop to break. I feel that developers are going to have to code to open standards or users are going to have to be introduced to Linux and its advantages to create the market share necessary to be a valid competitor for software companies to release Linux software and develop games and ports of popular programs.

http://www.kubuntu.org/ – Kubuntu Home Page
http://www.kde.org/ – K Desktop Environment

Mine was among the many printers that have issues requiring the unit to be returned to Kodak and often, returned again. The first issue I ran into was “Top Tray Jammed, Pull Tray Out….Top Tray Jammed, Push Tray In…Top Tray Jammed…” error. Pressing “Cancel” got me past this problem, as there is no paper jam. That is just an annoyance, but now I am stuck with an “error 6202″ which is apparently because of the scanner motor not being able to move. The reason for this became apparent as soon as I opened the printer up and noticed that a cable had come loose. As soon as I hooked the cable back up, the printer was back to working again. But, now I am out of ink again after I have only printed about 20 pages. Bottom line, avoid these printers at all costs. I have never had this much trouble with a printer. 

Don’t take just my word for it, here are links to other reviews about the Kodak ESP 7:

http://cnet.nytimes.com/multifunction-devices/kodak-esp-7/4852-3181_7-33342058.html
http://reviews.bestbuy.com/3545/9018519/reviews.htm
http://www.photographyblog.com/news/kodak_esp_9_esp_7_all_in_one_printers/ 

Even the ESP 5 is apparently flawed:

http://www.fixya.com/support/t1905975-paper_jam_error_light_kodak_esp_5

There are a few parts to QCodo/QCubed that speed up my coding time. First, I mentioned code generation. This is the strongest feature and is what originally drew me to QCodo. If you provide QCubed with your database information, you can have it scan your DB and write pretty clean “drafts” of OOP PHP code based on relationships and foreign keys. It will also generate draft QForms that can be used to perform basic CRUD functionality with the objects it has generated from the database.

Which brings me to the next feature that QCubed offers: QForms and QControls. QForms are as the developer puts it “stateful, event-driven objects.” What this means is that each QForm is basically an HTML form that posts back to itself and remembers its state from the previous posting. No sessions or cookies are used.

QControls are essentially PHP objects that have defined getters/setters that can be overridden or added onto.  The QForm is responsible for rendering the QControl as HTML and handling any events that are applied to the QControl. QControls can be nested and expanded on to create really powerful web applications.

The last part of QCodo/QCubed are QQueries. This is a shortcut way to perform SQL Queries in an object-oriented manner. QQueries can take in conditions and clauses to provide custom loading of objects in your application. For instance take the following logic:

Select all Projects where: the Project ID <= 2 AND (the manager’s first name is alphabetically “greater than” the last name, or who’s name contains “Website”)

<?php
$objProjectArray = Project::QueryArray(
QQ::AndCondition(
QQ::OrCondition(
QQ::GreaterThan(QQN::Project()->ManagerPerson->FirstName, QQN::Project()->ManagerPerson->LastName),
QQ::Like(QQN::Project()->Name, '%Website%')
),
QQ::LessOrEqual(QQN::Project()->Id, 2)
)
);

foreach ($objProjectArray as $objProject) {
_p(sprintf(‘%s (managed by %s %s)’, $objProject->Name, $objProject->ManagerPerson->FirstName, $objProject->ManagerPerson->LastName));
_p(‘<br/>’, false);
}
?>

This is much easier to read and understand than the SQL command required to perform the same function. Also, if you change your database source you won’t have to rewrite code, as long as the relational structure stays the same.

I highly recommend you check out http://examples.qcodo.com and http://trac.qcu.be/projects/qcubed/wiki/Tutorials to get a sense of how powerful this framework truly is.

Windows 7 seems to be a minor update to Vista. I have found nothing spectacular with this system. The biggest improvement is what the MS camp is touting to be a more compartmentalized system that will (Finally!) allow components like Internet Explorer to be removed. The ultimate goal being to provide a smaller footprint on custom systems, such as netbooks or Media Center PCs where Linux systems are gaining a higher market share.

Microsoft is releasing it’s stranglehold on Internet Explorer to focus on it’s Windows Live endeavor. It now seems that Microsoft is swapping focus from their desktop applications and are now focusing more on Internet SAAS. This move is obviously an attempt to compete with Google’s online applications. Windows Live is a big part of Windows 7 and Microsoft is using this to funnel users into their services.

In conclusion, Microsoft is still the same old Microsoft. Windows 7 has no new innovations and is just another avenue of income for the folks in Redmond.