Post installation

I don't know why but I can't wrap my head around Drupal at all, and so I hope someone will be able to give me some assistance.

I am trying to create a block that will show documents. I have created a document content type, and it has a custom field called category. Category is a dropdown.

In this block, I want a dropdown, the same as the Document's. When a user selects an category it will show the documents pertaining to that category.

I'm having a heck of a time with this. I've been banging away for a couple of weeks and haven't been able to set up a simple site.

I've been a programmer ten years for large banks and telecoms. I have 6 websites up. I'm certified by Cisco and Microsoft. I've manned a PC help desk for two years, and done network troubleshooting for 3 years. My point is, I'm a very technical person, but can't get anywhere with Drupal. It's like when I loaded up Autocad five years ago, spent a week poking around, and still couldn't even draw a square.

I guess the main problem is documentation. I'm one of those people that loves to RTFM, but I can't find any for Drupal (especially 5.1). I've learned over many years to step forward carefully by using the manual. Try a setting, test, undo the setting. But this is taking forever. By just flicking all the switches willy-nilly until it works, you leave a very messy path, and basically just have to uninstall and start over, or you never really know what you did.

I hate to bother people, and refrain from asking questions in the forums, but it's my last hope. My clients are screaming at me, "where's our website". Sorry to say, if I can't get any traction, it's back to Dreamweaver and vBulletin, though I'm sure I'll love Drupal once I 'get it'.

My question:

I created a story while logged in as user/1. I set the owner to user/2, logged out and logged back in as user/2. I was unable to edit the story.

After some investigating, the cause seems to be that the story is not published yet. The owner has definitely been changed to user/2. user/2 has permissions to "create story content", "edit own story content" and "edit story content". But no luck editing the story. user/2 can edit other published stories.

So is this expected behaviour? I can't find anything either way after a quick search of the doco.

I installed the Category Module and everything is fine and I can make a forum container but when I try to post to a topic it doesnt show up in the forum under that category nor in the forum at all. the only place the post shows up is in my content. I have tried everything I know can someone please help with this. thanks for any help.

I have banner module installed. I don't see anywhere to add a new banner. From the documentation it sounds like it should be available in Admin ==> Banners

I am logged in as admin

When I go to Admin ==> Banners

I see two tabs: (1) List (2) Refresh

Under the List tab there are some columns:

1) Title
2) Status
3) Owner
4) Views
5) Clicks
6) Operations (View/Edit)

There is one banner in the system already. I can view it and edit it, but do not see where I can add additional banners.

Here on Drupal.org, is there a way
to set Drupal.org to email me
when I get a reply to comment or forum question?

I guess there are modules to add to Drupal, but IN THIS FORUM, can it be done?

thanks,
Quint