One of the most frustrating things about creating your first Drupal website is the mind-boggling learning curve. There are literally thousands of Drupal modules to choose from. Even sites that search, rate and review Drupal modules leave the beginning Drupal enthusiast wondering "Where does a person start?"

Take for example something as simple as embedding an image in a news article. With static web pages it is easy enough to embed an image by referencing where it is located in the website directory structure. By contrast, with Drupal there are a multitude of ways to handle images with no clear roadmap for the first time Drupal website builder. Compund that by the fact that we can make an image a node, in which case we have one image per node. Or we can create a "custom content type" where we attach images to fields or lists. We can also load a full-size photo and have Drupal functionality automatically produce thumbnails for us.

And, "Oh, by the way. What is the best way to upload, store and access our photos. How do we include them using the embedded WYSIWYG browser that we use to create Drupal web pages?

When using Drupal our paradigm is totally different from how we created web pages using a tool like DreamWeaver. And did you know that with Drupal you can also "version" your content, preview, publish and "roll-back"? The choices are staggering.

As I went through the learning process I wished many times that there was some way I could just load a working full-function Drupal site so that I could "learn by example". That led to this idea of creating "Starter Websites" that are already preconfigured with a working copy of Apache, PHP and MySQL.

Here I have taken what I consider to be the best modules for a particular type of website, and enabled and pre-configured the sample website for you. All you have to do is download the appropriate "Starter Website" bundle to your local Windows PC, unzip it and run it. They already "work". And if you trash your first website as you learn on your PC, you just unzip another copy from the download. It's that simple. My goal is to spare you the months of pain that I went through to learn Drupal, by preassembling and configuring the leading Drupal modules that you need to create a particular type of website. You start with a full-function website to learn on.

May I make a suggestion? Split your learning into two steps:

1. Familarize yourself with the Basic Drupal Website bundle first. Take your time to become acquainted with each of the modules and what they do -- and don't do. Don't try to create your "dream website" until you graduated from "Drupal 101".
2. Now that you have a general idea how Drupal works, and how you may want to handle users, roles and content you are ready to pull a pre-configured advanced Drupal website bundle "off the shelf" and "take it for a spin". You now know the routine - same song, next verse. We learn by working with a preconfigured website that actually works. We play with it, enable and disable modules -- maybe add a few of our own. Our confidence increases because we actually have a sample working website from the start -- similar to what we want to implement.

Now that we have a prototype website, we have a much better idea how all the pieces fit together -- what the capabilities and limitations are. We have something that we can actually demonstrate to others to help them "catch the vision".

At this point we are ready to start developing our very own Drupal website. May I once again suggest starting with one of the bundled "Starter Websites" that you are now familiar with? You will probably want to design your workflow like this:

1. Develop initial configuration on your local PC
2. Create a "staging copy" on your hosting webserver that users can interact with and begin loading content.
3. Use the "staging copy" to create your "production website".

Each of these three steps are also explained in more detail in Building your website.

To "dive right in" and begin "learning by example" go next to Installation.