On a side note, I finally have the website straight. If you are studying for the CCIE R&S and want some help, or would like to just bounce a few questions off someone feel free to contact me using any of the social links or contact page.

Cisco PVST+ 802.1d
Cisco Proprietary
One STP instance per VLAN.

Port States:
Disabled
Blocking
Listening
Learning
Forwarding

Phase 1 – Root Bridge Election.
Election is based on the Switch with the best Bridge ID (BID). BID is made up of Bridge Priority and Bridge MAC Address.

Root Bridge Election – Change bridge priority to change the STP root bridge.
(config)#spanning-tree vlan (VLANs) root primary
-or-
(config)#spanning-tree vlan (VLANS) priority (0 - 65535)

Phase 2 – Root Port Election.
Based on lowest cumulative Port Cost, lowest upstream BID, and lowest upstream Port ID.

Port Cost can be changed locally by changing the follow on the local interface.
(config-if)#speed (10/100/1000)
-or-
(config-if)#bandwidth (value)
-or-
(config-if)#spanning-tree vlan (VLANs) cost (Value)
Changing cost will effect all down stream switches as well as the local switch.

Port ID can be changed using one of the following interface command.
(config-if)#spanning-tree vlan (VLANs) port-priority (0 - 240)
Changing the port priority effects down stream switches. Lower priority is more preferred.

Command to know
#show spanning-tree (VLAN) details - To see why STP decided on the Port it did.

Rapid-STP 802.1w
Cisco Proprietary
One STP instance per VLAN.

Port States:
Discarding
Learning
Forwarding

(config)#spanning-tree mode rapid-pvst
Built in Uplink Fast and Backbone Fast (More below).

MST 802.1s
Open Standard
Enabling 802.1s will get you 802.1w by default.

(config)#spanning-tree mode mst

MST uses the same election process as 802.1d, however uses user defined instances.
(config)#spanning-tree mst configuration
(config-mst)#name (NAME)
(config-mst)#revision (Number)
(config-mst)#instance (NUMBER) vlan (VLANs)

Must “exit” the spanning-tree mst configuration before the changes take effect.
Instance 0 is a “catch all” for any VLANs that are not defined in another MST instance.

Change priorities on a per instance basis, not on a per interface basis.

Commit the following to memory:
Port Fast - Forward traffic through the listening and learning phases. Set this towards the host. Can be enabled global with BPDU Filter.

BPDU Filter- When configured on an interface used to stop sending BPDUs out an interface. Enabled global to revert port fast interface out of port fast if a BPDU is received. Use with global port fast enabled.

BPDU Guard- Put interface in err-disabled state if a BPDU is received in and interface. Can be enabled on the interface or global.

Root Guard- Like BPDU Guard, however will only err-disable the port is a superior BPDU is received. Usually used on the network edge.

Uplink Fast- Recover from a direct failure of the root port. Immediately transition an ALT port to forwarding when the root port fails. Built into MST 802.1s and RSTP 802.1w.

Backbone Fast- Recover from indirect failure of the root port. Expires the Max Age time when a inferior BPDU is received on root port. Works with the Max Age timer.

Loop Guard- When BPDUs are not longer received the port does NOT go through normal STP convergence. It fails the port into an STP Loop-Inconsistent state.