Unfortunately there more than few commonly used Drupal 6 modules have yet to be updated to Drupal 7. That is part of the problem with open source development when the author of a module is no longer maintaining it, you need wait for someone to take over. Which could mean you.

To gain a quick understanding of Drupal 7, I took the 20+ online video courses Getting Started with Drupal 7 Tutorials from leveltendesign web site. They do an excellent job of  helping a newbie to Drupal, learn how to use this CMS.  Anyone looking to get started using Drupal 7 should watch them.

Add ons

Rate  seems to have all the options

So I tried Drupal 7 and found many features I am  looking for but not all of them. I will need spend more time in using Drupal 7 to determine if it meets my needs.

So decided to do a search on “choosing a cms” and found some helpful articles.

How To Choose The Right CMS (2009) - WDD by Jason Mosley does a very good job of summing up what my thoughts on choosing a CMS and identify some CMSes that I have yet to try.

Ten Simple Rules for Choosing the Perfect CMS + Excellent Options (2009) by Cameron Chapman. This article has many of the same suggestions as the one above by Jason Mosley.  She lists 10 CMS to consider.

8 features to look for when choosing a cms - Posted on Sunday 1st June 2008 by Drew McLellan. Handy list of features to look for.

There are probably more articles that will help but this is the best i found after 30 minutes of searching.

After downloading the latest versions of Ultimate Boot CD (dos\linux) and UBCD for Windows, I took a look at the popular downloads and found a few I will be checking out.

Patch My PC 1.1.2 – Portable app that checks for updates for free software on your PC.

Dolphin Text Editor Menu 2.4  - Adding features to Notepad, Wordpad and others

Google Chrome Portable 11.0.696.77 – portable version of Chrome

Screenshot Captor 2.95.01 – automatic thumbnail creation might be handy

Speccy – detail system info include temperature for components

Kaspersky Rescue Disk 06.07.2011 – Boot cd to fix viruses

To prevent this, purchasing a domain name for your web site provides you control over which web host your domain name points to. When you switch a web host you just configure your domain name for the new host.  Domain names are purchased from domain registration providers.  Most providers charge $10 to $20 a year. You will own that domain long as you continue to pay the yearly subscription.

What is a Domain Name?

Now I probably confused you. I went from web address to domain name and made it sound like they are the same thing. Well they are not. The first part of a web address is a domain name or a subdomain name.  This blog uses a subdomain name of “junglegeorge.wordpress.com” and is not owned by me. The website “wordpress.com” is a domain name. Both “junglegeorge.wordpress.com” and “wordpress.com” have different web pages. I believe “junglegeorge.wordpress.com” is owned by the owners of  “wordpress.com”. So if I want to change hosts with the same website address I cannot.

Back to owning your own domain name,you can purchase it from a domain registration provider for a yearly fee. Since you own it, you need to provide some personal information such as name, phone number, address, and email. They might require additional information. To prevent this information from being available to everyone, you can purchase a privacy option where the domain registration provider screens access to your phone number, address, and email account.

This a lot to take in especially if you are new to creating websites. However, you need to know the differences between web address, domain name, and subdomain name.

Free Domain Providers

There are domain providers that offer free domain names for your site. Each have a their own terms of agreement which must be followed else they will take back control of the domain name they provided you for your website. Listed below are the free domain providers I have found. When looking at them, read their terms of agreements, FAQ sections, and visit their forums. Maybe send them an email to get for clarification of their terms. Know what you are getting into. Starting up a new site and loosing a domain name because of some violation would be disappointing. If you want Adsense ads on your site try to confirm they will not be blocked by Google before you sign up. Google has a few domains which it blocks Adsense such as 110MB.COM

Currently I have not used any of them so I have no recommendation.

CO.CC (Content Policy, FAQ) – Provides free domains for personnal use.  I see this provider mentioned a lot by those suggesting free domain providers such as  eHow.  Here is a guide for setting it up. To ask questions on the site you must register.
Site name= your-name.co.cc

CO.NR free domain (terms of service, directory of CO.NR sites ,forum) – requires link on your home page. Provides free domains for both personal and company. NR is the country code for Republic of Nauru.
Site name= www.your-name.co.nr

Listed Features

• Free URL Forwarding, also known as Free URL Redirection
• Intelligent Free Path Forwarding and Advanced Free META TAGS support
• Free URL Cloaking also known as Free URL Masking
• No banners or popup ads, actually, NO ANY ADS at all
• Ability to use your free domain name with and without WWW, and more

DOT TK (About, FAQ, Wiki,Privacy Policy) – Available since 2001. Requires 25 unique visitors to your site over 90 days. TK is the country code for the Tokelau, a country in the South Pacific with a population of 1500.

Site name= www.your-name.tk

DynDNS (support ,privacy policy)- Provides .com names but are padded with dyndns. Available since 1998.

Some site name examples. They have 18 available suffixes

• your-name.dyndns.info
• your-name.dyndns.tv
• your-name.dyndns-blog.com
• your-name.dyndns-free.com
• your-name.dyndns-web.com

Published Capabilities and Features

• Get two hostnames in 18 available domains for free.
• Forward web requests or mark host offline for maintenance or downtime.
• Configure MX records for flexible mail routing.
• Update host using ddns update clients for a wide variety of platforms.
• Modify DNS TTL values for fast propagation or reliable static IP caching.
• Deliver your DNS records to 5 DNS servers in 5 tier-1 datacenters around the globe.
• Query volume up to 648,000 queries/month

UNI.CC (about, Terms of  Service, Privacy statement) – Free domains for commercial and personal sites. Online since 1999, accepting new subscriptions since 2009.

Site name= www.your-name.uni.cc

Afraid.Org (Faq) – Free with lots of features listed

Nic.Biz.ly (Faq)  – Only for developed sites, which is means 100 daily visitors a day and a few other things.  Requires link on your main page. Offering free domains since 2003.

Microsft Office Live provides one free domain name.

Disclaimer

The information provided on this web site comes without any warranty whatsoever and is for personnel use only. Use it at your own risk.

Top 7 Easy and Free Web Hosting Services by Jeffry Thurana on Sep. 29th, 2009. Provides a list of free web hosts offering enough free features for you to  host a wordpress blog site. That means MYSQL, PHP and some other features.

I visited all the sites checking out their various features. Listed below are sites from the article and their features that are most important to me.  You should read the Jeffry’s article for additional information and insight.

• Zymic
  • No required ads
  • 50 GB Monthly bandwidth
  • 15 MB file size stated in FAQ
  • 500 MB space
  • Unlimited web sites per account
  • 5 MY SQL Databases, PHPMYADMIN is provided
  • FTP
  • Sub domains such as 99k.org, zxq.net, zymichost.com
  • Terminated for inactivity but does not state length of time for inactivity.
  • Support forum
  • My Opinion: Good start, 50 GB Monthly bandwidth might be an issue
• XtreemHost
  • 200 GB Monthly Bandwidth
  • 5500 MB space
  • 4 MB FTP file size and 2 MB PHP file size
  • FTP
  • PHP 5.2.12
  • 50 MY SQL Databases
  • 50 add on domains
  • 50 subdomains
  • Sendmail on
  • Custom .htaccess
  • Limited CPU Usage
  • Support from forums, email, knowledge base, chat and vistapanel. The FAQ section is helpful.
  • Premium Services cost $44 a year
  • My Opinion: The 4 MB file size is an issue uploading/downloading zip files when setting up and backing up websites. Everything else looks good or great. New registration as of 1/12/2011 is down because they are updating the free servers. They are at least keeping everyone informed.
• Hosting-Engine
  • 4 GB Data Transfer
  • 150 MB Disk Space
  • 1 Domains Hosting
  • 2 Subdomains
  • MySQL(v.4/5)
  • PHP4/5, Perl, CGI
  • FTP/FrontPage Support
  • POP3/IMAP Email [No SMTP]
  • Upload File size limit 500kb
  • zip,rar, gz and other files types not cannot be uploaded
  • Terminated if site receives no activity for 12 months
  • Purchased service 65.88 to 107.88 a year
  • Some services are disabled on free site such a fsockopen, curl_init
  • No forum found. Support contact them
  • My Opinion: not being able to use ZIP is a big no. I had trouble finding any reviews on it because of its name or lack of reviews.
• Host-Ed
  • 4 GB data transfer
  • 150 MB space
  • PHP 4/5
  • 1 MY SQL database 10 MB size limit
  • 1 domain hosted
  • FTP
  • POP 3
  • Termination after 6 months on inactivity
  • Purchased service: 59.88 – 95.88 a year
  • Same disabled services as Hosting-engine.
  • My Opinion: MySQL 10 MB file size limit maybe an issue.
• Freehostia
  • 6 GB Monthly Bandwidth
  • 250 MB disk space
  • POP3/IMAP E-mail accounts
  • 5 Domains
  • 15 Sub-domains
  • Perl
  • Python
  • PHP 4/5
  • 1 MYSQL Database 10 MB size limit
  • FTP
  • Daily Backup
  • SMTP requires an upgrade
  • Many provided CMS installations
  • Affordable Upgrades. 2.95 – 9.95 a month
  • My Opinion: MySQL 10 MB file size limit maybe an issue.
• PhpNet
  • Site seems down
  • My Opinion: Site was down when I checked it a few times, so a big NO!!!!
• 000Webhost
  • 100 GB Monthly Bandwidth
  • 1500 MB Disk space
  • 5 Add on Domains
  • 5 Sub Domains
  • 2 My SQL Databases – no size limit
  • FTP
  • PHP mail() function and Sendmail
  • Zend Optimizer and Ioncube are enabled on servers
  • Curl, GD2 library, XML, Zend, .htaccess support
  • No ads or banners. Allows your own ads
  • Unlimited accounts
  • No file size limit or extension restriction. On their CPanel  FTP upload screen the show a 5 MB file limit.
  • User account and domain name maybe be the same
  • Premium Hosting 4.95 a month
  • SMTP not available on free accounts
  • Support Forum
  • Free sudomain URL Template www.???.host22.com. You provide the ???
  • My Opinion: Two My SQL Database limit but unlimited accounts so I am not sure what that means. It seems to have most things I would need. There are public videos and tutorials  on installing wordpress on this host.
  • I joined this ISP host and learned a few more things. SHTML includes (SSI) are no supported. I have to use PHP include instead which means renaming all my SHTML webpages.
  • Server status checking server uptime, lobrc, and techjunkie

The second article is 40 Places Where You Can Create Your Websites Online by Dicky May 26th, 2010.  These hosts all seem to provide web site making tools to help those with no technical skills to create a web site. Many mention a drag and drop interface. The problem with these type of sites, it is difficult to move your site to another host if you need to. So far I have visited a few of them but have not signed up for any. These sites might be a good starting point for those not wanting to learn HTML and other web browser scripting languages.

The only option I know of is to  delete them manually yourself. In my case after the deleting about 6, I decided to guess and delete a bunch of old ones. This caused an issue and I decided to uninstall COD2. This gave me more issues so I tried to uninstall it manually, which turned out to be bad idea. I got COD2 cleaned off but during the reinstall, I could not install patch 1.3.

During the patch 1.3 install, I got the error I “Error: 1612 The installation source for this product is not available. Verify that the source exists and that you can access it.”

This error pointed to something not being cleaned up properly. Therefore, I ran CCLeaner, EasyCleaner, and WinUtilities. I even tried Microsoft’s fix it site and still no luck. I uninstalled COD4 thinking it was a confused. Then I ran the system file check tool SFC that had issues because I did not have a Windows XP Home Edition SP 4. Even after create the needed CD and fixing any SFC errors, the COD Patch was still not installing.

I uninstalled and reinstalled several times hoping it would fix the issue. Finally, I turned to a tool no longer provided by Microsoft but available from the other sites. It is called “Window Installer Cleanup”. I downloaded it from Softpedia. When using softpedia it is easy to click the wrong download link. I should have gone to Major Geek instead. Oh well, I downloaded and installed it. I saw patches for Call of Duty 2 and 4. Since I did not have Call of Duty 4 installed, I removed them. Then I remove Call of Duty 2 1.3 patch and rebooted my PC. This time the 1.3 patch worked as expected and I am happy after a working on this for a week.

One thing you should keep in mind during this entire time I had thoughts of reinstalling Windows XP on my PC to fix this. So I took chances I would not otherwise have done so. I skipped system backups when I should not have. I could easily have made my PC unusual able. Having to remove multiplayer maps manually in order to download the correct one is a poor design decision in Call of Duty 2. A cleanup map option should have been provided.

So time for me troubleshoot using the internet. I found a post that suggested slipstreaming SP3 with my installation CD. I have done this past when creating a UBCD for Windows.

Instructions/Downloads

• Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Create Bootable CD – HelpwithWindows.com
• Slipstream Service Pack 3 into Your Windows XP Installation CD – LifeHacker
• How to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 3 to Create an Integrated XP Setup Disk with SP 3 – howtohaven
• SlipstreamingGateway OEM Windows XP Home Edition CD – MyPCQuickRef
• Using nLite suggested at this post
• Windows XP SP3 Download – Microsoft
• How to Create a Bootable Windows XP Setup Disk on a Preinstalled / Preloaded Windows System – howtohaven

• sfc /scannow missing cd – techsupportforum

How I Finished SFC

I listed several approaches for slipstreaming SP3 onto the Window XP Home installation.  I decided to use nLite because it seemed the easiest.

Installed nLite

Copied all my Gateway CD contents to c:\XP_Source

1. Downloaded Windows XP SP3 Download to c:\XP_SP3
2. executed nLite
3. specified source c:\XP_Source
4. Select Tasks Service Pack and bootable ISO
5. Selected SP3 in c:\XP_SP3 and clicked ok to removing older SP1 in XP_Source
6. Says integration was successful
7. Created the ISO image and saved in c:\XP_Home_ISO

I tested this image before burning it on a CD by starting up Virtual PC on Windows XP Professional. Then I followed the instructions from this article but used the Windows XP Home ISO instead. It worked. Next, I burned a CD with the ISO image and see if it will work with SFC.

After inserting the CD, it failed to recognize the CD as a Windows XP Home edition Service Pack CD. So back to searching the internet in which I found a post on techsupportforum that provided the solution. I needed change a setting in the registry located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

The SourcePath was correct so I change ServicePackSourcePath to same location and it worked.

ScreenShots

Summary

• Use nLite to create an ISO image with Windows XP Sp3 download and my Windows XP Home edition SP1 CD from Gateway
• Burn ISO on a CD using Nero
• Used REGEDT32 to change entry ServicePackSourcePath to D:\ located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup
• Put my new installation CD in the D: drive
• Run SFC /SCANNOW from a command window

I should of known because this happened about 5 years  ago. It does not happen often but then again I don’t know for sure because I don’t monitor it.

So if this issue happens again, here is my plan.

1. Check Comcast Outage Board – does not show DNS Outage
2. Check Comcast Help Forum
3. Use DNSBench to check DNS speeds for a variety of DNS
4. DNSStuff – variety of web based tools to check DNS setups
5. Setup OpenDNS on Router
6. Try alternate DNS providers

Yes, my provider is Comcast but most of these options are feasable for all ISP providers except the Comcast Help forum and Outage Board.

To share you files between PC’s, log onto your other PC’s, connect to your Drop Box account at the DropBox site, and install the program. The process is quick and painless. It will start right away replicating files onto your new PC.  Besides Windows, DropBox supports Linux, Mac OS and Mobile Devices.

When I originally heard of DropBox I had two issues to overcome.

First being required to put everything in one folder named MyDropbox. After using if for a while I found this as benefit. You never worry about which folders are being backed up and its easy to remember. Its icon in system task makes it is easy to find on your differrent PC’s.

My second issue is the size of 2 Gb, my approach is not to worry about it. When I hit the MAX so be it. Until then I have easy access to files that duplicated. I have not hit the maximum size.

If your looking for an easy way to host or share folders/files over the internet, this tool makes it very easy to use for both you and your vistors.  Don’t worry about your private files, only the files and folders you want to share will be accessible by others over the internet. Only you have full access to your files. Do not forget the 30 day backup in case you want undo a change or bring back a file.

I continue to look for a valid alternative to DropBox but have not  not found one. All the others have file size limits or difficuties in backing/retrieving files. I am currently using mine for portable applications, docementation, and web site development.

Additional Link(s)

• Re-examining Dropbox and its alternatives by Woody Leonhard

My Requirements

• Access from multiple browsers
• Access from multiple computer
• Option to keep them private by default
• Support 1000′s of bookmarks
• Organize in directory format
• Export/import option for  multiple browser formats
• Tags are optional
• Reliable

Linkagogo

Has been my long-term bookmark manager for a long time but with only 2 or less bookmarks a day and them not willing to fix it. It was time to switch.

Yahoo Bookmarks

Was my first online bookmark manager. It was a pain adding bookmarks, there use to be a 1000 bookmark limit, and you had to use their tool-bar on a supported browser add them or enter them manually on there site.  With its new face-lift, many of these issue have been resolved. Now using their Bookmarklet tool, I can easily add bookmarks while using Firefox, Opera, and Chrome without their tool bar. Internet Explorer does not use the pop, instead it creates a new page.  Using the bookmarket tool has freed us from installing Yahoo’s toolbar. You can still install and use it, unfortunately with all these tabs, status bar, and bookmark bar; adding a toolbar takes up to much space for me.

Safari Dial

Provides a page of 9 quick links similar to Opera’s quick dial. Making it your home page, provides a quick dial to other browsers.

Only2Click

Takes quick-dials to a new level with multiple tabs of quick-dials and support for more than 9 links on a tab. You can quickly add bookmarks using its bookmarklet. Or add them manually to your tabs (which I did for a long time until I found the bookmarklet). I wouldn’t use this site for every bookmark, just the ones I want to find quickly or use often.

Likes: Website images are nice touch. Organizing them is relatively easy, once you remember to left click above the web page image. Import/export options should be helpful but I have not tested them. Useful notes option.

Dislikes: When manually adding URL’s, it pre-fills the field with  http:// which slows down pasting the URL.  Using the Bookmarklet on IE8 was problematic. I kept getting a pop-up about going to a trusted connection. I found the workaround here but had other issues.

Social Bookmarking Websites

Social  bookmarking websites was started as a way for people to share their bookmarks with friends and other members. Members can rate/review a bookmarks helping to promote useful sites.  Descriptions of the web-page can also be added. Basically these sites goal is to provide a community user review of web-pages that is searched by other members.

Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon (wiki) popular social bookmarking site that allows users to rate web pages, photo’s and videos.

Likes: Provides a tool-bar that makes it easy to bookmarks web-pages, view favorites, rate web page, and other social bookmarking stuff.  Currently, this tool-bar is only for Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.

FireFox Toolbar StumbleUpon Toolbar

Promote Your Site with StumbleUpon Buttons & Tools

Dislikes: Cannot change username. You can close your account and open another with your preferred name.

Digg

Digg This! (wiki) is website that allows members to share internet content, links and stories. It makes use of tags to organize bookmarks.

FireFox add-on Digg Firefox Extension.

Dislikes: Digg checks for duplicates showing you a long list of potential duplicates for you to review. Its to much of a hassle to manual to check for duplicates. They should use the web address and determine this for you.

Delicious

Delicious (aka Del.icio.us) (wiki) social bookmarking site for storing, sharing, and finding web pages. Tags (no spaces) are used to group similar bookmarks together. You can import your existing bookmarks from browsers and the will be assigned a tag based on the folder that are stored in.

FireFox Toolbar Delicious Bookmarks 2.0.104. Adds a side bar, icon, and menu items.

Likes: Very easy to add sites, Good Support for different browsers. Can be used with your Yahoo account. See how popular a bookmark is.

Dislikes:  Tagging system, I prefer a directory

Technorati

Technorati (wiki)  Internet searching engine for blogs. You add your blog by submitting a claim for your blog site.  Has favorites option.

Conclusion

As I stated earlier this was no all-encompassing. Yes I did not mention some very popular social sites such as linkedin, myspace, or facebook because I do not actively use those sites. I only signed up for FaceBook so I can access FaceBook sites. Currently, I am using Yahoo bookmarks for extensive bookmarking and Only2Clicks instead of the quick/fast dial from Opera/Firefox.  Delicious might become an alternative for Yahoo but for now its Yahoo Bookmarks.

Additional Links

• Visual Bookmark Sites – Weblist
• Visual Bookmark Sites – WEB UPD8
• 39 Start Page Web Services – Make use of Com