Common .htaccess Rules for SEO and Rackspace Cloud Sites

Every site we build on the Rackspace Cloud ends up needing a lot of similar rules in the htaccess file. On my local PC I've collected them in a text file, that I copy paste sections from almost every day. Most of the below examples will work on your average Linux-based server with Apache and mod_rewrite enabled. A few are RS Cloud Sites specific (as noted). In case you've never messed with this stuff before, note that this isn't a single file to copy in its entirety. Each section has a different purpose.