Pals - Its Drupal's Now

Welcome Pals,
After a Very Long Time, Indeed.
Lets Move on,

Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power scores of different web sites, including -> Community web portals -> Discussion sites -> Corporate web sites -> Intranet applications -> Personal web sites or blogs -> Aficionado sites -> E-commerce applications -> Resource directories -> Social Networking sites.

Drupal adds Glamour to itself by providing these add-on services as well -> Electronic commerce -> Blogs -> Collaborative authoring environments -> Forums -> Peer-to-peer networking -> Newsletters -> Podcasting -> Picture galleries -> File uploads and downloads.

Installing and Configuring Drupal on your local computer

1. Install Xampp

2. Download Latest Drupal 6.15

Installation

1. Open the c:\xampp\htdocs folder

2. Create a subfolder. For this example, we'll call it "drupal" (C:\xampp\htdocs\drupal).

3. Extract the downloaded drupal files and folder into this folder.
Make sure the unpacked Drupal folders and files are in the directory called "drupal" as above and are not in something like (C:\xampp\htdocs\drupal\drupal-6.14)

4. Copy the file "c:\xampp\htdocs\drupal\sites\default\default.settings.php" file to the same directory, and name it "settings.php".
You should now have two identical files in your "c:\xampp\htdocs\drupal\sites\default" folder: one called "settings.php" and one called "default.settings.php".

5. Decide on a password for your administrator (root) account. Let's say you choose "root"

6. Open the file "c:\xampp\htdocs\drupal\sites\default\settings.php" in your Editor
a. $db_url = 'mysql://username:password@localhost/databasename'; to $db_url = 'mysql://root:user@localhost/drupal';
b. Then you will have to delete the "#" at the beginning of this line.
# $base_url = 'http://www.example.com'; to $base_url = 'http://localhost/drupal';

7. Browse to http://localhost/security and search for “http://localhost/security/xamppsecurity.php” in that page.Now enter the password “password”. Stop and restart MySQL in the XAMPP control panel (takes ten seconds).

8. Browse to http://localhost/phpmyadmin. Log in with "root" and your password. Don't do anything except create a new database, for this example we'll call it "drupal". Type "drupal" (without the " marks!) in the box marked "Create new database" and click on the button "Create" just to the right of it. You should get a screen confirming the database has been created.

9. Open browser and Browse to http://localhost/drupal/install.php and follow the simple instructions
a. In Configure site page, you can enter anything.
name : localhost
email : email@Website.com
admin name : admin
password : pwd

Other things should be left as default

10. Now you will get ‘finish’ page with some error.Dont worry! just ignore it!

11. Your website is ready browse to http://localhost/drupal/

Go on here for a video tutorial about Drupal themes

There are numerous Modules available for Drupal, Find them here

Cheers,
Santhosh

Sharepoint Unveiled

Hey Guys,
Welcum back,
its been an interesting journey travelling through ur mind,
wen ever i cum into this blog,
Sharepoint ??
So whats the point??

The term "SharePoint" collectively refers to two products, the platform and the services. MOSS 2007 is the platform while WSS 3.0provides additional services.
To be simple in words,
Sharepoint is mainly used as a collaborate workspace,a tool for the management and automation of business processes, and a platform for social networking.

The company may be rooted in India, and it may have branches all over the world, A team may consist of members from different countries, working from their own places, here is a workspace where all meet together, updating their work, sharing the files, assigning a task, announcing a meeting and many more.
All this can be done in a safe and organised manner, Using sharepoint services..

Now u may have an idea what iteez.

If Ur looking for a video tutorial to know the basics GO on here

Here you can get more video tutorials about sharepoint services.

Switch over to this once you are done with the above ones.

Finally get a bulk of video tutorials here...

All those videos would ve surely taken u half way thro,,

the rest half is all about the effort u put in..

I cant wind it up without the themes for sharepoint??

Here are the steps to make over a fresh theme for your sharepoint portal, Follow these steps:-

..\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\THEMES
This is the place ur themes will be dwelling.

To put a new theme which you ve done,
Jus paste ur theme folder in that space.

After doing that navigate to the
..\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033
space to find a file "SPTHEMES.XML"

In that file add the following code,

(note: It must be pasted between the SPTHEMES tags, do not overwrite or edit existing entries.)


<**Templates**>
<**TemplateID**>Tempate id same as folder name<**/TemplateID**>
<**DisplayName>the display name<**/DisplayName**>
<**Description**>Theme Pack: small description<**/Description**>
<**Thumbnail**>images/preview.jpg<**/Thumbnail**>
<**Preview**>images/preview.jpg<**/Preview**>


Note - Remove all ** from the above code

Before that put the preview image of size 375px * 310px here
..\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\IMAGES

And finally Restart the IIS
Using the command prompt: iisreset/ restart

Now ur theme will be listed in the list, just apply and enjoy the look and feel.

And How to make a theme? I will say the simplest way i knew,
Copy and paste an existing theme and rename it
open ur site in Sharepoint Designer,

The theme.css is the one controlling the whole theme,
and it ll not accept any changes u do to it..

bcoz it will create a run time css using the .inf file ex.theme10111.css

and this run time css will accept all the changes u do to it,
So jus use it to change the theme to ur wish.

Thats all abt the themepack..
i would suggest this site for the guidance during Theme.css customization.

u can catch up with experts in sharepoint over here

So Finally am done with my Basic Sharepoint Customizations.

Cheers,
Santhosh