Zend Framework (Zend - ZF)

Zend Framework is completely an object-oriented framework and utilizes a lot of object-oriented (OO) concepts like interfaces and inheritance. This composes most, if not all, of Zend Framework's components extendable to some point. It permits developers to apply their own particular variations of individual components without having to hack into the ZF codebases itself. Being able to modify Zend framework this way permits to make functionality that is distinctive to a project, but due to its object-oriented character, one can use this functionality in other projects also.

ZF’s main advantage is the ability to make code reusable and because no one likes to repeat themselves, this is a very good thing. Zend Framework has A LOT of components. If one need a way to authenticate a user he can use Zend_Auth. If one need to control access to his resources, he can look up Zend_Acl. If one need to build some forms, he can use Zend_Form. If one need to read an RSS feed, he can use Zend_Feed for that. Zend Framework is basically the Swiss Army knife of PHP classes.

ZF does not have a Model implementation which means that the developer has the liberty to integrate existing implementations or use whatever means he has to implement it.

jQuery

jQuery is a JavaScript toolkit created to simplify diverse tasks by writing less code. jQuery make things easier for HTML document traverse, animation, Ajax interactions and event handling for quick web development. It is very compact and well written JavaScript code that enhances the developer’s productivity by facilitating them to get critical UI functionality via writing very small amount of code.

Features:

• AJAX Support: jQuery helps to build up a feature-rich and responsive site using AJAX technology.
• DOM manipulation: jQuery simplifies to select DOM elements, traverse them and altering their content by utilizing cross-browser open source selector engine known as Sizzle.
• Event handling: jQuery offers a neat way to capture a wide range of events, like a user clicking on a link, without the requirement to disorder the HTML code itself with event handlers.
• Animations: jQuery comes with plethora of built-in animation effects which can be used in websites.
• Latest Technology: The jQuery supports basic XPath syntax and CSS3 selectors.
• Lightweight: jQuery is very lightweight library approximately 19KB in size.
• Cross Browser Support: The jQuery works well in IE 6.0+, Safari 3.0+, Firefox 2.0+, Opera 9.0+ and Chrome.

Other advantages of jQuery are

• There is no need to learn new syntaxes to use jQuery because knowing simple JavaScript syntax is sufficient.
• It has simpler and cleaner code and therefore there is no need to write a couple of lines of codes to get complex functionality.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization refers to techniques that help a website to rank higher in SERP (Search Engine Result Pages), making a website more visible to people who are searching for a brand, service or product via search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. SEO helps website to reach to its potential audience and help businesses to get the maximum exposure that they need to generate better revenue. The better a website is visible over a search engine (Google, Yahoo and Bing) the better are its chances to convert potential prospects into clients.

SEO professionals use a lot of techniques to provide exposure to a website over the wide span of World Wide Web and make people aware of its existence. These techniques are based on certain “Keywords” that reflects the brand, services or product of a business. So whenever people look for a service or product online the website which is optimized by SEO professionals appears higher on search engine result pages and attains maximum visitors. Besides this highlighting a business over Social Media Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube and Tumblr is also a vital part of optimizing a website. SEO takes into account Facebook likes, tweets, retweets, Google+ authorship and other social signals.

Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)

PHP is a script language and interpreter and is mainly used on Linux Web servers. PHP is freely offered and originally derived from Personal Home Page Tools.

PHP is a server-side technology that creates web pages dynamically. For instance, if there is a product catalog than instead of updating the web pages each time a product is removed or added, the details can be stored in a database and can use PHP to query the database and make the page automatically. So there is no need to build a separate page for each product. Simply build one page and PHP fills in rest of the details itself.

Depending on how PHP is used, its code can be stored in external files or embedded in a web page. Unlike JavaScript or CSS, PHP code always remains on the web server. Visitors to a website never see the code; all they see is the output. It is a great substitute to Microsoft's Active Server Page (ASP) technology.

Other benefits of PHP include uploading files, creating login systems and sending emails. Every news website, online store, social networking site blog uses PHP or a similar server-side technology. PHP is free and offered under an open source license.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Hyper Text Markup Language in common is known as HTML. It is very easy to learn and is very useful in making web pages. Hyper Text Markup Language uses approach of what you see is what you get. In HTML characters are encircled by the tags. In HTML tags come in pair. Hyper text Markup file is a text file that contains small markup tags. The role of these marks up tags is to tell the browser how to demonstrate a web page.

HTML has two types of extensions one is .html and second is .htm but both are used for creating html web pages. The benefit of HTML is that it is not case sensitive. Other software like Dreamweaver and FrontPage can also be used to write tags. For windows, simple text editor like notepad can be used for writing code and for Mac operating system codes can be written via simple text editor.

Every web page requires HTML and without it, it is hard to create appealing web pages. HTML is the base for every web page because it is used to display the text in every web page. DHTML (Dynamic html) is another latest version of HTML which is used to make more interactive web pages.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Cascading Style Sheet was first developed in the year 1997, as a means for Web developers to classify the look of Web pages. CSS did not gain much of an attention until around the year 2000, when web browsers started using more than the basic color and font aspects of CSS. And today, all of the modern web browsers support all of CSS Level 1, CSS Level 2, and some aspects of CSS Level 3.

It was developed to permit developers to split content from design so that HTML could carry out more of the function. It was basically based on the markup of content, to remove the worry about the design and layout.

Style sheet of CSS refers to the document itself and these style sheets have been used for document design for years. They are the technical patterns for a layout, whether online or print. Print designers utilize style sheets to make sure that their designs are printed precisely as per specifications. A style sheet for a Web page fulfill similar purpose, but with added functionality of also conveying the Web browser how to render the document being. Every single Web page is influenced by at least one style sheet, even if the Web designer does not use any styles.