This article outlines the steps necessary to run a "Hello world" in node.js + express, running on a 64bit Centos 6.4 installation. We will be building the latest version of source (at this moment, v0.10.4) from the upstream provider.
As is written on their homepage, Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. This is a fast, event driven platform and server-side Javascript engine used for building web applications. DigitalOceans' droplets are a cost-effective way to install and start studying server-side Javascript and bulding or deploying web applications with Node.js.