If you're having trouble getting to the point where you can install Drupal, check out this great article by drupalbeginner, aka Dave:

http://drupal.org/node/749846

In his words:
"I really struggled (as most beginners do) with getting Drupal up and running on my home computer. But I figured it out and wrote a "how I did it" for the drupal.org site here:
http://drupal.org/node/749846 Let me know your thoughts."

Thanks Dave!

The contest has ended and books have been awarded. Thanks!

Wander over to DrupalEasy.com and check out Mike Anello's interview with me about Drupal for Dummies.

It's been about a week since this site was attacked by the spambots. I was getting 3 or 4 new user accounts per hour, and this rate began increasing. While I could tell that they were bogus accounts by looking at their email addresses, it was an annoyance to get so many notifications. Also, I really want visitors to this site to have an easy time getting an account, and not have to wait until I have time to approve their registrations.

So I tried a few things, but in the end I installed the Mollom module. It takes a few steps to get signed up and register it, but the instructions are easy to follow. And it's well worth it! Take a look at the graph Mollom generated for me showing the spam it caught. Click on the image to see it full size. But even looking at the thumbnail, you can tell Mollom has been great. The orange color represents spam user accounts that have been prevented.

I've got this site set up to require users to give a valid email address to request a new account. This being the case, I have the opportunity to see those email addresses.
The spammer who has been causing me annoyance today has emails that look like this:

bl.a.z.e.c.a.s.e.y.ol.omon @gmail.com
a.le.x.iva.n.o.vidr.ug @gmail.com
s.e.mautk.in.g.v.a.nfu @gmail.com

You get the idea. So when I see an email like that, I don't grant account access.

I've also banned access to people trying to set up accounts from specific domains. These include:

free-lesbian-pic.in
stanleykitchens-zp.in
bfkrnln.org
clothesbestsearch.info
avgustinotarapul.com
baggot.net