Google just announced that they will sponsor 18 Drupal developer stipends in this year's Summer of Code program (SoC). Google provides a stipend of 5,000 USD to each student developer, of which 4,500 USD goes to the student and 500 USD goes to Drupal Association (or to the mentors). With 18 accepted applications this adds up to a 90,000 USD investment over a three-month period, bringing the total investment made by Google in Drupal through SoC to over $450,000 USD.

The accepted students, their projects, and the mentors are listed on the official Drupal.org announcement. Congratulations to all successful applicants, and thanks to the Drupal Summer of Code organizers, the Drupal mentors, and last but not least, Google. The summer is of to a great start!
 

Lullabot, one of the wide known drupal development company, has acquired Rapid Waters Development on March 01, 2010. This is a clear evidance of the growth of Lullabot beside its mounting project and drupal education.

Drupal is a powerful content management with hundreds and hundreds of modules available for free to extend the basic core Drupal functionalities. However, it could be puzzling for beginners to find the modules that suit them best. Here are my 10 must have drupal modules for every website.

1- Administration Menu
The Administration Menu module is a real time-saver for Drupal site administrators.  This is the very first module I install for any Drupal websites.  It creates a theme independent CSS-based menu on the top of the page with quick access to the most important administrative tasks and can be displayed for specific roles. Once you started using this module, you can’t help loving it.

Just 31 years old, Dries Buytaert already has an impressive hit list. He’s the creator of Drupal, an open source content management system, and CTO and founder of Acquia, which works with enterprise customers on Drupal projects. With 2 million downloads since inception in 2001, more than 750 developers have contributed code to Drupal 6, the latest version. There are more than 400,000 Drupal-based sites.

Acquia, which Buytaert founded in 2007 to bring Drupal into the enterprise, is backed by North Bridges Venture Partners, Sigma Partners and O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures. Enterprise-level companies using Drupal include Turner Broadcasting, Zappos and Sony.

Currently Buytaert and team are working on Drupal 7.
 

 Drupal is the best content management system I have ever come across. Besides being Open Source, Drupal has thousands of free contributed modules by Drupal enthusiasts and great community support. It has all the features necessary to build simple to complex web applications and portal websites. Installing Drupal is becoming easier and easier in each and every release. This article will show you how to install Drupal on your shared hosting server.

Step1:  Download the latest drupal installation files from drupal.org. 

Step2:  Using 7zip (free) or Winrar extract the file to a local folder

Drupal is becoming popular in government sectors and now The Department of Commerce (USA) is planning to replace its existing website with Drupal-based system. The Commerce Department is asking vendors to submit information about the difficulty and feasibility of adapting Drupal, according to a request for information the department published on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site on Nov. 27.

Recently I found BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) using Drupal for its magazine websites while checking out Dries buytaert's blog (Drupal founder).

• BBC Music Magazine
• BBC Countryfile Magazine
• BBC Focus Magazine
• BBC Who Do You Think You Are Magazine
• BBC History Magazine
• BBC Home And Antiques

Simple video showing the steps you need to follow to get a fresh Drupal install up and running on a WAMP server.