How to upgrade Drupal 6 to Drupal 7

23 October, 2013 | Drupal Development | 6 seen

Drupal 6 was released in 2008 and Drupal 7 was released in 2011. While Drupal 6 is still used by some websites, it is important to upgrade to Drupal 7 as it provides improved performance, security updates, and new features.

This article will guide you through the preparation process for upgrading Drupal 6 to Drupal 7.

Before making any changes, it is important to create a backup of your website. This will ensure that you can restore your website if something goes wrong during the upgrade process. You can create a backup by using a backup module or by manually copying your website files and database.

Drupal 7 has higher system requirements than Drupal 6. Before upgrading, check if your server meets the Drupal 7 system requirements. Make sure your server has the correct version of PHP, MySQL, and other required software.

Before upgrading to Drupal 7, it is important to update all of your modules and themes to their latest versions. This will ensure that your website is compatible with Drupal 7 and that you will not…

Make Me a German

22 October, 2013 | Documentaries | 9 seen

<p>Entertaining documentary from BBC, where Brit journalist with his wife and kids moves to Germany, to see what is the averege life of German people. Journalist gets a job in German pencil factory, and needs to get up exactly at 06:23 AM. Meanwhile his wife needs to be a real housewife and do house works 4 hours and 10 minutes each day. They send their kids to children garden in Woods.</p><p>Fun, entertaining and positive:</p>

Putin, Russia and the West: "New Start"

21 October, 2013 | Documentaries | 6 seen

<p>Found this documentary on YouTube, and watched in Saturday evening.&nbsp;</p><p>In this documentary is showed time when Dmitry Medvedev was president of Russia, and how Barack Obama decided to deal exactly with him, and not with Vladimir Putin.&nbsp;</p><p>In this documentary Dmitry Medvedev is portrayed as wise and independent leader, how he started reforms in Russia. As well it's showed how USA negotiated with Russia concerning Iran Nuclear program.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>If you are interested in Russia's politics, I could suggest this documentary for you.</p>

Few shots from Tbilisi Cheese Festival

20 October, 2013 | Living in Georgia | 17 seen

In these days the second Cheese Festival was held in Tbilisi Open Air Museum. My mom was visiting me in Georgia, and today her plane back home was. We decided to spend last hours together. The weather was not so great. We didn't found much cheese, but we spent a lovely time.

Here are few shots I captured with my old Sony DSC camera and three years later post-processed using Adobe Lightroom. 

European and Georgian cow

I find a lot of symbolism in picture above.

The Fall has come

Cheese promoters and girl with a basket

Second Tbilisi Cheese Festival

Tbilisi Open Air Museum

How to Create a Contact Form in Drupal: A Beginner's Guide

20 October, 2013 | Drupal Development | 11 seen

If you have a Drupal website, adding a contact form can be a great way to improve communication with your visitors and potential customers.

In this article, we will discuss how to add a contact form to your Drupal website, step by step.

• Download Webform
• Extract it to sites/all/modules
• Enable from the modules page

How to Showcase Popular Content on Your Drupal Website

19 October, 2013 | Drupal Development | 14 seen

Drupal is a popular content management system used by many businesses and organizations to create and manage their websites. One of the key features of Drupal is the ability to display popular content on your website. By displaying popular content, you can increase engagement and drive more traffic to your website.

In this article, we will discuss how to display popular content in Drupal.

On the picture above, you can see the most popular blog posts on my blog 15:05:01 2013-10-16.

Step 1: Enable the Statistics Module The first step is to enable the Statistics module in Drupal. This module allows you to track page views and other metrics on your website. To enable the Statistics module, go to Administration > Extend and check the box next to the Statistics module. Then click the "Install" button.

Step 2: Configure the Statistics Module Once you have enabled the Statistics module, you need to configure it to track page views. To do this, go to Administration > Configuration > System > Statistics. Under "Logging," check the box next to "Count content views." Then click the "Save configuration" button.

Step 3:…

Optimizing Your Drupal Website for Search Engines: How to Create a Sitemap for Google Webmasters

18 October, 2013 | Drupal Development | 18 seen

A sitemap is a critical aspect of any website, including Drupal websites. It helps search engines like Google to discover and index all of the pages on your website, making it easier for users to find your content.

In this article, we'll guide you through the steps to create a Drupal sitemap for Google Webmasters.

Step-by-step guide:

• Download the XML Sitemap module for Drupal
• Extract it to sites/all/modules
• Enable it from the Modules page

Estonia to catch up Scandinavia in next 10-15 years

17 October, 2013 | Emerging Markets | 27 seen

I have red some interesting article on Estonian Public Broadcasting (news.err.ee) in which  professor of economics, at Tartu University, Raul Eamets predicts that it will take 10-15 years for Estonian incomes to catch up with those of Nordic countries. 

Income level is not the same as GDP, but knowing GDP we can tell something about income level, isn't that right?  I decided to make some quick GDP comparison levels of Nordic countries and Estonia.I don't know which countries Estonian economics professor counted as Nordic countries,  but for the ease of continuing mathematical theories (my lame Google Spreadsheet graphs), I'll assume = Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland are counted as Nordic countries,

Current (2012) GDP nominal in Estonia vs Nordic Countries

Here are the raw GDP nominal 2012 data from World Bank:

• Estonia 21.854 bln USD
• Iceland 13.656 bln USD
• Finland 250.024 bln USD
• Denmark 314.242 bln USD
• Norway 499.667 bln USD
• Sweden 525.742 bln…

Week #2 of blogging 365 days in a row

17 October, 2013 | Blogging | 3 seen

<p>On October 3rd, 2013, I started a blog contest for myself - <a href="http://reinisfischer.com/node/8">Can you blog 365 days in a row.</a></p><p>Today is already 2nd week of my blogging expierence.</p><p>In second week, I continued to use "cheat" tactic, by publishing posts in future dates. That works ok.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I found out that posts I write to publish in future dates are more from - <em>How stuff works</em> category - I'm writting a lot about <a href="http://reinisfischer.com/topics/drupal">Drupal</a&gt; configuration.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Posts non-related to technical stuff - I'm publishing ASAP :)</p><p>Week 2 - marks 17 posts in total, by one (16) <a href="http://reinisfischer.com/week-1-blogging-365-days-row">more than in first week</a>.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>But - I must agree that I'm <a href="http://reinisfischer.com/node/8">already achieving routine feeling</a>, I talked starting this contest.</p>

Armenia, then, now - future

16 October, 2013 | Emerging Markets | 11 seen

Recently I wrote an article about Georgia, then, now - future, this time I would like to write about Armenia.

Landlocked land, with huge economic problems, ongoing conflicts with neighboring Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karbakh region. A country that plans to enter Eurasian Union on January 1st, 2014.

Let's start with some basic chart:

As seen from the chart above, Armenia, as well as neighboring Georgia, is no exception, in economic shrink after collapsing of Soviet Union. Now let's take a closer look by years:

• 1991. - The collapse of Soviet Union - Economy Shrinks
• 1992-1993. The economy continues to shrink, by reaching its bottom in 1993 in resulting GDP nominal just 1.201 bln USD
• 1994-1998. Economy starts to recover, reaching GDP 1.893 bln USD nominal
• 1999-2000. Looks like Armenia is softly touched by Russian economic crisis as well
• 2001 - 2008. "Golden ages" for Armenian economy. Armenia first in 2002 has greater GDP, that it was in 1990. The Year of 2008 is yet the best year for Armenian GDP - reaching 11.662 bln USD
• 2009. As the rest of world Armenia is hit by World…

Few shots from Samgori, Tbilisi

16 October, 2013 | Living in Georgia | 30 seen

Samgori is a district in Tbilisi, which is connected to the city center by the metro. Seems that the Samgori neighborhood is rarely visited by tourists

I first visited this part of Tbilisi back in August/September 2013. A lot has changed ever since, and now I considering investing in Samgori real estate market, as the property prices stile are among the lowest in the city

 A place to grow

How to Add Facebook Like Button to Drupal 7 Site

16 October, 2013 | Drupal Development | 13 seen

If you want to add the Facebook like button to your Drupal 7 site, the process is relatively straightforward. To get started, you will need to download the Facebook Like Button module from the modules section of your Drupal site. Once you have downloaded the module, extract it to the sites/modules folder.

Next, you will need to enable the Facebook Like Button module from the Modules page.

Once you have enabled the module, go to the admin/config/fblikebutton page to configure the module. You will be presented with two options for the Facebook like button: Dynamic and Static. Depending on your desired behavior for the like button, you will need to choose one of these options.

If you want the like button to dynamically like the page you are visiting, choose the Dynamic option.

To set up the like button for Drupal posts (nodes), you will need to go to the admin/config/fblikebutton/dynamic page. Here, you will be able to configure the appearance and behavior of the like button, including the layout, show faces, font, and color scheme.

By using the Facebook Like Button module, you can easily add a powerful social sharing tool to your Drupal 7…

Drupal Friendly URL Setup: A Step-by-Step Guide for Optimizing Your Site URLs

15 October, 2013 | Drupal Development | 33 seen

Update: This article covers details on how to enable and configure the Pathauto module for the Drupal 7 site. For Drupal 8, please see: How To Setup Pretty URLs For Drupal 8

Setting up Drupal-friendly URLs is one of the most essential tasks for Drupal users, as these URLs play a critical role in both human readability and search engine optimization (SEO). In the latest versions of Drupal, some of the friendly URL features are enabled by default, but there may still be instances where you need to configure them further.

The default Drupal URL format is structured like node/21, which is functional but not ideal for human readability or SEO. To convert this URL to something like /my-awesome-title, you will need to download and enable two modules: Pathauto and Token.

Once you have installed both modules, navigate to the URL patterns settings at admin/config/search/path/patterns. From here, you can start customizing your Drupal-friendly URLs to match the desired format.

By properly configuring Drupal-friendly URLs, you can improve the overall user experience on your website and enhance its visibility to search engines.

…

The Importance of Monitoring Germany's Economy for Forecasting EU's Future

15 October, 2013 | Macroeconomics | 21 seen

Germany is the largest economy in the European Union, accounting for more than 3 trillion USD GDP nominal.

This gives us a clear indication that if we can forecast the German economy, we can also forecast the economy of the European Union and even the Euro Zone.

Understanding the economic landscape of Germany is crucial, as it is a dominant player in the EU, with a significant impact on the overall economic health of the region.

The chart above showcases the GDP nominal of Germany compared to the European Union in 2012.

As seen in the chart, Germany accounted for more than 20% of the total EU GDP in that year, which is a significant portion. This highlights the importance of understanding the German economy and its future projections, as they can serve as a predictor for the EU as a whole.

According to the DIW, the German economy is expected to expand by 0.4% in 2013 and 1.7% in 2014. This predicts relative stability for both Germany and the EU. However, it is important to note that the German economy is not immune to external factors such as the ongoing global economic uncertainty.

The chart below provides a visual…

The Boycott Debate: Should Georgia Participate in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics?

15 October, 2013 | Living in Georgia | 18 seen

In Georgia, the question of whether or not to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi is a hot topic.

Some are calling for a boycott in response to the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 and Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. Others argue that it is important to normalize relationships with Russia.

Recently, Georgian students staged protests in seven cities, calling for Georgia's participation in the Sochi games. The Prime Minister of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has also weighed in on the debate, stating that the decision will depend on whether or not the participation would be seen as a humiliation for Georgia.

In my opinion, with only 3-9 athletes expected to participate from Georgia, a boycott would bring more international attention to the country's disputes with Russia. By boycotting, Georgia would have the opportunity to once again bring attention to their disputes on a global stage.

If Georgia does decide to participate, the athletes should aim to win gold medals, to show their strength and dominance. However, with such a small representation, the impact of their participation may be limited.

In…