Every time I hear that Rails isn't scalable, I laugh. I work on an RoR site that handles millions of page views a day. The scalability solutions for RoR are the same as any framework: caching, database clustering, app server clustering, and load balancing. With a team of smart developers and sys admins, you can make any site based on a solid framework scalable. Since the poster's shop has extensive PHP experience, picking a solid PHP framework is probably best for him, although he shouldn't discount the productivity gains he may experience with Rails or another Ruby framework (Sinatra, etc.).

I've had good luck with making it a mandatory part of the process. A developer fixes an issue, and before it can move into the "test" bucket, it has pass through the "code review" bucket. We do round-robin code reviews where a developer just grabs someone who's not too busy, and they take 10-15 minutes to do the review. No need for hour-long reviews since reviews tend to be done on smaller pieces of code. Different processes work for different groups. This is what worked for us.

Finding a bug in your own code costs one of unit of work. QA finding a bug in your work costs 10 units of work. Having a customer find a bug in your code costs 100 units of work. Doing code reviews increases efficiency. Plus, you get to both teach and learn from your peers.

A helmet also saved my life. It shattered into little pieces instead of my skull. However, I draw the line at knee and elbow pads. Scraping your knee won't kill you, and stitches are something to brag about.

I'm allergic to tomatoes and lactose intolerant, you insensitive clod!

Well, I'm 3 2-digiters. Boo yeah!

Not at first. When I signed up, the visual editor didn't exist. I uploaded my first site off a floppy. I wrote my HTML on a 286 using an old DOS-based text editor. Anyone ever use VDE? Anyway, the visual editor didn't appear until months later.

Misspelling words won't break your code as long as you misspell consistently. Once "orginal", always "orginal". :D

PDFs have their place...particularly distribution of complicated forms and contracts. Print a PDF of a contract, sign it with a real signature (e-sigs not accepted everywhere), re-scan and send. With today's multi-function scanners and printers, this is actually faster than faxing. Better yet, my insurance agent has a special stylus for electronically signing documents. The end result is a PDF that gets sent to the main office to be filed with all the other paperwork. Sometimes, a real sheet of paper is still a requirement.

I've also found this technique useful. If I'm not inspired to work on my current task, I'll just jump to a more interesting one on the list. Usually by the time I'm done the more interestng one, it has become dreadfully boring, and the original task becomes interesting again.

I second that. I've been to the Grand Rapids area many times, and I've loved it every time. Plenty of forests, not a lot of traffic, and very intelligent and friendly people. I would have moved there if it wasn't for the winters and lack of jobs.

You've obviously never had to see your kid off to open heart surgery. The kid WILL freak out at the alien-looking nurses in their shower caps and bright yellow smocks. Anything to reduce the fear is a good thing.

GEOS ... you can pry my Commodore 64C from my dead, cold fingers ...

I have found that client references tend to be some of the best, especially if they've been happy with your work. If your client is happy, it means you probably made your employer happy.