How to properly install Node.js and npm

I'm documenting here the proper way to install node.js in case I might need to do it again. I'm using the word "proper" because the first time I installed node.js, I did it system wide and that
made it very difficult for me to install npm, the node.js package manager. So, without further ado:

Installing Node.js

git clone git://github.com/ry/node.git
cd node
./configure --prefix=$HOME/my_node
make install

Open $HOME/.profile and add:

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/my_node/bin

Then run:

source $HOME/.profile

Installing npm
Simply do:

curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

Hello, Internet!

I've decided to start a blog in which I will document my experience in learning programming. When you saw the title, you probably thought of Lambda the Ultimate. That's what I thought as well, but since I'm pretty much a beginner, I thought I'd call my blog Lambda the First, although I know realize that that might imply I consider myself the first. Well, not yet.

So far, I'm familiar with Python and JavaScript, so I will mostly discuss about these. I have also used Scrapy (a web crawling framework written in Python) for the last couple of months, so I'll be mentioning it too.

Next, I'm planning to learn to use Twisted, so you can imagine that it will drip in here. I actually intend to create a mind map to help me learn better, but I'll see how that goes because, from what I've seen, Twisted is huge. Maybe several mind maps, each focusing on a specific module, will be more appropriate.

Creating mind maps is one of my hobbies, so I'll be doing it a lot. I already have a few for Python, Scrapy, JavaScript, Django, which I will publish shortly.

Ok, that's about it for my first post. I'm curious to see how this will evolve.