I just finished installing an alpha version of Drupal 7 and I'm already impressed with its improved interface and overall user experience design for administrators.

This screenshot shows the default home page for a logged in user. The first thing to notice is the new admin menu (in the black and gray bars at the top of the page). I've been using the Administration Menu module on all of my Drupal 6.x sites, so it's great to see this feature included as part of the Drupal 7 default install.

The other important new feature is the shortcuts menu. This extension to the admin menu lets each user create and edit their own shortcuts.

Like other menus, the shortcuts menu can be changed with a drag-and-drop interface. Each administration page (sample shown above) has a small icon (+) next to its name that adds that page to the shortcuts menu. 

The push for usability in Drupal 7 is apparent from the first few minutes of use. Even though it's still in alpha mode, I think we can expect some really useful features to appear once the first official version is released. 

• Drupal 7 is available as a free download at Drupal.org

Google Analytics is an amazingly in-depth, full-featured, and best of all free web application.

In case you're unfamiliar, Google Analytics tracks the number of hits that your website gets. But beyond that, it organizes the data into many meaningful categories that provide a detailed snapshot of who is visiting your site and how they're getting there.

My personal favorite is the map overlay. You can start by seeing how many hits per country your site is getting in a user-friendly interactive map. Clicking on a country brings you in closer - in the case of the United States, you get a state-by-state breakdown of website visits. Clicking on any state then gives you a breakdown by city! Geo-targeting, here we come.

There are a multitude of other features and even some customizable options. It's pretty easy to set up, too; especially with Drupal, which has a downloadable Google Analytics module.

All you need to get started is a (free) Gmail account - try it out at google.com/analytics.