Before you start

i am new to drupal. i have php, mysql installed in my system. i have installed drupal in my system. i dont know from where to start. everyone says that within minutes a fellow can create a website in drupal without any programming knowledge. and friends i am good in php and mysql both. please someone help. and please dont ask me to refer drupal documentation. it may be good but i dont get it... seriuosly. can anyone help me with a site which provides step by step guidelines to create a website(for absolute beginners).

hello there

so navigating the hole site, i'm not still where should i begin to ask my question in drupal community

i'm a blind person, using a screenreader:
http://www.freedomscientific.com/
to work with computer and stuff.
the point is, my screenreader will navigate among the texts and will read it for me.

I uploaded Drupal 7.1 to public_html directory. I turned off register_globals. Now I'm trying to install the database. In CPanel I added a database. I then added a user with a rather complex password and added it with all permissions to the database. When entering the info on the database page it returns the following error:

Failed to connect to your database server. The server reports the following message: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1193 Unknown system variable 'NAMES'.

I need to create a network of sites that share a common code base. So Site1 and Site2 and so-on are managed under one Drupal install.

They need to be separate sites with their own themes and modules. However they all also need the ability to share content. I need any node created on any of the sites to be shared, or not, with some or all of the other sites. I will have five sites to start, and 20 by the end of 2013.

I am considering building a niche social network and I am concerned about Drupal's ability to scale when there are a lot of logged in users. I have read numerous posts on here saying that with caching, Drupal fairs pretty well for anonymous / non-logged in users, but that scalability is an issue with a lot of logged in users. The site I am developing would have to be able to handle between 200,000 and 1,000,000 logged in users a month. I could not find a lot of cases where Drupal is being used for a social network with a high amount of logged in users besides this site (drupal.org).

I want that user can upload their personal images and they will get uploaded to the folder images/'username'/
Where username is specific name of user,
I don't know how to do,
Please tell me how can i do it in Drupal 7 ??