Go here to see this with screenshots.

OK - so now that you've got your site installed, it is time to start configuring and personalizing.

1. Go to your homepage (www.yourdomain.com) and click the link titled administration section in the main content area. You may be wondering why the username in the upper left is blurred - the first user is the main site administrator and has access to and the ability to do anything. For security, that username should not be shared.

2. The first thing you will see in the administration section is a pink warning box. This is common with new installations. Click on status report to see the problems.

3. The 'cron job' is usually the culprit. Cron is a time-based scheduling service on a website server. It is used to run things at specific times and intervals, and is not something that is always needed for a Drupal site. You can fix the error by clicking the run cron manually link. If there is a need to setup cron tasks, it will be covered here later. After a few seconds you will see a message stating that 'Cron ran successfully' and we can get back to the main administration by clicking Site configuration in the navigation menu to the left.

4. After the Site configurationSite information. On the actual Site information page you can change the following:

• Name: The name of your site, like John's Big Tire Shop. This appears in the page title and may appear by the logo at the top of the page.
• Email address: The main contact email address and recipient of site messages.
• Slogan: Your sites catchphrase, if you have one. Setting one is a good idea as it will appear in the home page title and can be great for search engine optimization.
• Mission: A quick description of your site and its goals. This is excellent for letting newcomers get a quick overview of what your site is all about.
• Footer message: This is the text that appears at the bottom of the page. For mine, I chose a Creative Commons license that allows people to share my work as long as they say who wrote it (and hopefully link back here too). That may be a good choice for you, but if your website is a business, you may want to have your material be protected by a stricter copyright instead. Here is some basic code you can use for that:

  @copy; 2007 by Your Business

• Anonymous user: You can set the name that appears when an anonymous user makes an addition to your site. You will be able to set what an anonymous user can and can not do - user permissions is one of the great things about Drupal.
• Default front page: You can change which page appears as your front or home page. You do not need to change this setting yet.

That's it for the basic configurations - all your site needs now is content. Coming up will be lessons on adding content and getting a Creative Commons license. I hope you're having fun!

Find more Drupal tutorials at www.drupalpunk.com!