Post installation

I've seen some sites where you can, say, join as an artist or join as a user. How can I set that up for Drupal?

Thanks!

Does something like this exist for drupal? I was thinking of setting up the initial beta of the launch of my site where members are allowed to invite users to join, etc.. Similiar to how G-mail is set up?

I have created a custom node that I want my users to fill out, so I thought there was a way to make this a part of the registration process but haven't found a way... unless....

I'm trying to get the image_assist module to work. I've uploaded it and activated the module, and it works to upload an image, set it's attributes, etc... But when I get to the actual preview/post of the image, all I see is the following code:

[img_assist|nid=10|title=imagefour|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=60|height=14]

Any clue how I can get Drupal to interpret these images and display the html?

I would like to change a username, but then I get the message that that is not allowed and I should contact the website administrator. But that is me, I am the first account in my Drupal version. Shouldnt I be allowd to do that or what?

On my site i have made a number of content types all of which have location information attached to them - what i would like to do is on the main page for each country (which lists a few basic fields and general information) is to provide a view that is placed in a block at the bottom of the page that lists 5 of the most recent pages of 3 other content pages that have the same country location as the current page they are viewing, and to insert this location into the view query.

So if you were looking at the Iran page you would see:
|------------------------------------|
| Page |
| (location - iran) |
| |-----------------------------| |
| | | |
| | top section of fields | |
| | | |
| |_________________________| |
| |-----------------------------| |
| | | |
| | view - uses page location | |
| | and prints out teaser list | |
| | of pages of X type that | |
| | have that location | |
| |_________________________| |
|_______________________________|

I can set this up as a page by page block by exporting the view and changing the country selected - but there must be an easier way than having 190+ blocks and views.