The reviews by : John Conroy at cmswire.com

It goes like this:

Now there’s a headline you never thought you’d see. Young Innovations, a Drupal development firm from the mystical land of Nepal, has released a beginners guide, in English, for the Drupal open source web content management system. Drupal how to For Beginners was developed by Young Innovations in conjunction with SAP, and is freely available under a Creative Commons license.

Running to 94 pages and with screenshots-aplenty, the guide is comprehensive. The scope is similarly broad – beginning with an explanation of what a CMS is (as if anybody knows anymore…), and continues through installation, management, customization, and adding modules.

One small gripe — the sages behind this tome are rather more at home wrestling with LAMP configs and pimping add-on modules than with the deployment of English grammar.

Witness this affront to Wordsworth and Byron:

“The primary target audience of this how-to or manual are people with some knowledge of web programming language and database more specifically people who know PHP and MySQL will be benefited to know and use such a world class product that also for free.”

Tut tut. Let me get my red pen.

But to be fair, we’re not marking these guys on syntax and grammar. You just want to know whether this “how-to” is worth downloading as an aid to getting your Drupal website up and running.

The answer is yes, and in fact it’s quite a bit more. Young Innovations should have called this ‘Goldilocks Teaches Drupal’, because everything is just about right.

Right length, right level of complexity, right amount of ‘dumbing down’ for less technical folk — within their stated audience of semi-HTML proficient persons, right balance between explanation and overt instruction.

Despite the aforementioned length, most of the bulk is taken up with screenshots and you can skim it in half an hour and still learn plenty. The primary function it performs, even more important to my mind than being an installation/beginners guide, is that it gives an excellent overview of exactly what Drupal is all about.

And that, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a worthwhile result.

Download the guide as a PDF here, and if you want to have a look at Young Innovations’ playground, visit them here. While you’re at it, why not go here to have a look at Nepal’s burgeoning Drupal community. Call it a cultural exchange.

In related news, influential Drupal consulting firm, Lullabot, has released a podcast citing “50 Drupal Tips and Tricks”. It’s already garnered 400 Diggs in just a couple of weeks, so tips like “Turn any CCK type with an imagefield into a photocast with ConTemplate” are evidently not the gibberish it appears to this non-Drupalist.

The cult of Lullabot has now racked up 50 such podcasts, and you can of course check them all out at lullabot.com.

In related Drupal news, the latest (beta) version has just hit the street. See Drupal Drops 6.0 Beta 3; Sports OpenID and Fancy Installer for the details.

Read it all it sounds cool.

YIPL Rocks.

हुन त माइक्रोसफ्ट जस्ता स्वामित्तमा विस्वास राख्ने कम्पनीहरुको सफ्टवेर र FOSS Software मा के फरक छ भनेर सोध्नुहोला । फरक भनेको माइक्रोसफ्ट जस्ता संस्थाले आफ्ना उत्पादनहरुको सर्वाधिकार आफैसँग राख्छन् र सफ्टवेर कोड अर्थात सफ्टवेर कसरी बनाइयो भन्ने जानकारीको स्रोत खुल्ला गर्दैनन् । यसले गर्दा अरु मानिसहरुले त्यस्ता उत्पादनको प्रकाशन गर्ने, प्रतिलिपी गर्ने, अदलबदल गर्ने र वितरण गर्न पाउँदैनन्। तर FOSS Software मा चाहि यो छुट हुन्छ।

तर एउटा महत्वपुर्ण प्रश्न तपाईलाई लाग्न सक्छ, यसले के फाइदा भयो त ?
यस्ता छुटले कुनै पनि सफ्टवेयरहरु स्थानिय भाषामा समुदाय या क्षेत्रलाई सजिलो हुने गरी सजिलै पुननिर्माण गर्न सकिन्छ जसले गर्दा सफ्टवेर चलाउनको लागि नै अरु धेरै कुराहरु जस्तै भाषा सिक्नुपर्दैन । त्यसैगरी FOSS को प्रयोगले खर्च घटाउँछ। यस्ता सफ्टवेयरहरु वितरण गर्ने र पुननिर्माण गर्ने छुट भएकोले यसले खर्च कम गर्न सहयोग गर्दछ । FOSS विकासकर्ता र समर्थकहरु व्यवसायिक उद्धेश्यबाट भन्दा पनि सामाजिक, आर्थिक र राजनीतिक कारणबाट प्रेरित हुन्छन् । यसले गर्दा सन्चार र ज्ञानको प्रवाहमा प्रबर्धन हुन्छ । यस्ता उत्पादनहरु सार्वजनिक सम्पतीको रुपमा हेरिन्छ । अझ सबभन्दा महत्वपुर्ण कुरा त हाम्रो जस्तो विकासोमुन्ख राष्ट्रहरुमा माइक्रोसफ्ट जस्ता कम्पनीहरुको सफ्टवेयरहरु गैरकानुनी रुपमा अनधिकृत तरिकाले प्रयोग गरिन्छ । तर FOSS का उत्पादहरु कानुनी रुपमा पनि प्रयोग गर्न सकिने हुन्छन् ।

चलाउन पनि रमाइलो, धेरै सुविधायुत्त, भाइरस पनि नलाग्ने र कानुनी मान्यता पनि भएकोले आजकाल म विस्तारै FOSS तिर सर्दैछु । Microsoft Office को सट्टा Open Office राखेको छु, त्यसैगरी Internet Explorer को सट्टा आजकाल म Firefox को प्रयोग गर्छु । चाँडै नै Windows को सट्टा Linux राख्ने विचारमा पनि छु । तपाई चाहि एकचोटी चलाएर किन हेर्नुहुन्न त ??

Few FOSS Softwares:
Open Office (openoffice.org) – An alternative to Microsoft Office
Mozilla Firefox (mozilla.com) – An alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer
Mozilla Thunderbird (mozilla.com) – An alternative to Outlook Express
Pidgin (pidgin.im) – An alternative to Instant Messenger
OpenSuse (opemsuse.org) – An alternative to Microsoft Windows
FileZilla

Images: enasha.com

You would feel it’s weird and almost impossible. How can this be possible??? When someone sends email, it reaches to receiver within seconds.

But with futureme.org, it’s not that hard to imagine. Just go to futureme.org and click on create new entry, fill your email address and your message and send it. You have option of dates up to 2037 A.D. You can even create message making it public which others too can read it. I have included on letter which is as follows:

Dear FutureMe,

I hope that I will have found happiness by this time. I hope I have a job that pays well, and someone in my life that loves me as much as (i think) my cat does. I hope my son has passed 8th grade, and has decided not to play football anymore. I hope that he somehow has forgiven me for my dumb mistake of moving out of state when his dad and I divorced. Whether or not I am still with my BF of 3 years, I hope somehow he has found happiness as well, and not in a stinkin beer bottle. I hope I realize my weight loss goal and am a size 8 again and that my lungs are free of black tar…
Sincerely yours,
old me

(written Wed Dec 31, 1969, sent Wed Dec 31, 1969)

Till date more than 408,380 letters written to the future and counting… So why don’t you get started?? I have written for myself…now it’s your turn.

If you haven’t used it, go to google.com/ig, sign in there with your Google ID, and when your personalized page come, click at add stuffs.

There are hundreds of stuffs, so might get lost so click on communication and add Free text message. Now go to homepage and you will see free text message gadget. Now click on edit of free text(Edit menu means traingle sign) and select worldwide. Give any international number and try to SMS. It will give one message saying either click on edit and give your ID or click here for account. Click there, another page will open.

Click on “Upgrade To The Newest Version……” then another page will open.

Find there other option and click on Google gadget and wait for sometime. After some time, you can see call wave’s gadget in your personalized page, insert your mobile number and email address.Few minutes later, it will send your verification code. Fill the code and you are done.

Now start sending SMS everywhere, anywhere you want. You can send SMS to NTC and Mero Mobile too.

To add more pain, now there have been other problems for Windows XP/2000 users also. See the news below taken from BBC.

Windows users are being urged to install Microsoft’s February security update which contains 12 patches for 20 vulnerabilities. The bumper package includes fixes for loopholes that malicious hackers are known to be already exploiting.

Another vulnerability is in the program Microsoft designed to spot viruses and spyware that has infected PCs. Half of the patches in the update have been rated as critical; criminals exploiting these could take over a PC.

Hijack trick

The fixes were issued as part of Microsoft’s regular monthly security update that falls on the second Tuesday of every month. Loopholes in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer and Microsoft’s Malware Protection Engine are closed by the updates in the patch. Versions of these programs used on Windows 2000 and XP could have these loopholes.

Users worried that they are at risk are being encouraged to check information about which programs are vulnerable via Microsoft’s security site. Some of the loopholes, particularly those in Word, have been actively exploited by malicious hackers for several weeks.

Many Windows XP owners are likely to get the patches automatically, but any user can download the patches from the Windows Update site. The “critical” rating usually means that a cyber criminal exploiting such a vulnerability could take over a PC via a booby-trapped webpage or by tricking a user into opening an attachment on an e-mail. None of the patches affected Vista – the newest version of the Windows operating system which was released on 30 January.

Source: BBC NEWS