Mining - Before you start mining (GPU)

Mining with the use of your video card.

Before you setup your computer for mining, a good thing to do is to check what video card is in your computer. (Why? Because it's nice to know if the juice is worth the squeeze) If you don't remember the name of your video card, and don't want to tear your computer apart, an easy way to check is: 

For Windows PC (The path depends on your Windows OS but it doesn't vary that much)

For almost any Windows OS
Press "Start" -> "Control Panel" -> "Device Manager" -> "Display adapters" 

For Windows 8
Move the pointer into top-left corner -> "Settings" -> "Control Panel" -> "Device Manager" -> "Display adapters" 

Now that you've clicked "Display adapters" open, an icon with the name of your video card should now appear below it.

Check if your video card is listed here. 

(Use CTRL+F and type in the number of your video card to find it quickly in the list. Eg. for NVIDIA GTX285 just type in GTX285.)

If your video card isn't listed, don't give up on all hope just yet!

The list may not be entirely complete, if you think you have a powerful video card, which you use for heavy gaming, I'm quite certain it qualifies. 

Any video card can be used, but the more powerful it is, the faster and easier the BitCoins are earned.

Mining - What is it?

What is Mining?

It's a way to earn BitCoins. You "mine" by using a program such as GUI Miner. The program uses the resources from your computer's video card, and uses these resources to process transactions for people who want to transfer BitCoins to other people. In return of using your resources for making all of this happen, you get BitCoins.

 

Why is it called mining?

Picture yourself mining for a diamond. You have to mine a certain amount of layers to get to the diamond. Each of these layers tells you that the diamond, is in fact a diamond, and not a fake one.

When mining for BitCoins, these layers work as security layers. Making sure that there can't be transferred any counterfeit.

This means that you contribute in verifying all transactions.

A longer but very simple explanation can be found here.

Wallet - Receive BitCoins with BitCoin-qt

How to receive BitCoins with the use of BitCoin-qt.

The first time you open the tab "Receive coins" the array will either be empty, or contain one label with an addresses made default by the program. 

An address looks similar to "1JjjEUyvUpFc3aptAxWiqJG21AH571UuWn". It is used to receive BitCoins. Sort of like a bank account number, you give it to the person who is going to transfer money to you.

I will recommend, in order to keep track on where you get money from, that you make a new address for every firm/person you receive BitCoins from.

If you're going to receive big amounts of BitCoins make several address. Eg. PersonA #1, PersonA #2 etc. 
Just in case somebody gets a sniff about you've received tons of BitCoins, and trakcs down who you are, and tries to hack your wallet on your computer.

There's no harm in making a lot of addresses, as long as you make it easy for yourself to keep track on them by labeling. You can always delete them, but keep in mind, the address still exist, it will still be able to get BitCoins send to it, but nobody is ever going to get it, since it isn't owned by anybody. If you gave that old address to a friend, and he/she transfers BitCoins to it - it's just too bad fella. Remember to inform them about the current address you use to receive their BitCoins.

New Address: Press the button with the green plus sign on it and a new windows will pop-up. Here you can write a label (write a name or anything that makes you know what you use this address for) An address code will automaticly be generated for you, press "Ok" and it will appear in the array.

Typo fail : You just made a new address the receive payment from your friend...Oh no wait, there's typo in the label you made, and your friend is already sending BitCoins to you...and because you are a little CDEO like me, you'll do anything to correct it. You can.
Simply right-click the label, select "Edit" and you can edit the label.
This edit of the label will have no impact on the transfer at all, since the address generated remains the same even though you rename the label.

BitCoin Wallet - Store your BitCoins with BitCoin-qt

How to store your BitCoins when using the software BitCoin-qt as your wallet.

After downloading and installing, when you open it for this first time, it will begin to download "blocks" you will see the process of the download as a green bar in the windows center bottom. This will take some time, depending on how fast they transfer the block to you, and how fast your internet speed is. Some say it took them an entire day, personally it took my 8~ hours of sleep and then it was done, while running on a download/upload speed of 50Mb/10Mb.

The first frame you'll see is the overview window. 

Balance: Your current amount of BitCoins

Unconfirmed: BitCoins you are going to receive, but haven't been confirmed yet. When they confirm they'll be added to your Balance

Recent transactions: All movement (transfered to/transfered from) of your wallet will be listed here with date, time, amount of BitCoins and the sender/receiver.

For more details of transactions ID, address, number of confirmations. Go to the tab "Transactions", select the transactions you want to see details for, right-click and select "Show transaction details".

Number of transaction: Will show a number of all the transactions made for this wallet.

BitCoins - You need a wallet for them

You can't just have all your BitCoins lying around, get them stored in a wallet.

Choose your wallet wisely.

There are several software applications which you can download and use as your wallet. After going around the webs I chose the software BitCoin-qt, which seemed as the most trustworthy program, and has been working like a charm since I got it. As mentioned in my former post, you can make a back up file of your BitCoins (there is a back up option in BitCoin-qt). Then if you have to upgrade your OS you can store the back up on a flash drive.

If you don't like having a software applications that stores your BitCoins directly on your computer, there are other but risky options. There are sites such as instawallet, where you have your wallet in the browser. I admit it is smart to be able to access your BitCoins from any computer, just by using the browser. Keep in mind your BitCoins are then stored in other people's hands, if something fails on their site/server, it is your lost, it is not their responsibility to restore your lost BitCoins.

If you just want to test out how a wallet works and looks like, sure you can just try instawallet.

Once you enter the site instawallet it immediately directs you to a unique generated address just for you (still on their own domain) This unique url-address is the address to access the inside of your wallet, in here you can receive and transfer BitCoins.

Keep two important things in mind:

Save the url/bookmark it.
The reason it's important to bookmark/write down the url-address is because, if you loose it, you don't have any chance of getting back into that wallet. So if you stored BitCoins in it, you can't ever access or claim them. Any one can say: "Oh hello instawallet.org, I made a wallet on your site, and I had like 50 BitCoins, could you give me the url-address?" Nobody can see it is truly yours/who it belongs to, and therefore anybody can claim it's theirs.

Never share the url/bookmark.
Don't ever give the url-address to anybody. It would be like going to the local library, log into your bank account and then just leave it, while it's still open there, free for anybody to transfer money from your account to themselves.

BitCoin versus...

BitCoin vs. "traditional money"

The money can move across the world today. We log into our banks online to receive paychecks and pay bills, use PayPal to buy products online. When we finally step outside "in the real world" we use our MasterCard, Visa, American Express to pay for gas on the car. We don't use "real physical money", unless we're at a hot dog stand, that is.

One doesn't necessarily need to rule out the other, there's room for both in this world. But it's fact that "digital money" is already widely used. So using BitCoins doesn't sound so scary, does it?

BitCoins are on the other hand much more freely transferred from one person to another. We don't have to wait until Monday morning for the bank to open, to go through all of our transactions and verifying them etc. The transactions of BitCoins is so fast that the receiver can get them instantly.

BitCoin is free from any laws from any country. It can be used to pay any amount, to anyone, at anytime, from anywhere, anonymously. 

No one can prevent it because of this massive community which has grown up around it, and still growing. Anyone with a computer (with internet access, of course) can help other people getting their transactions done.

For a more visual explanation watch this video at YouTube

BitCoin storing and computer safety

Instead of banks, BitCoins can be stored on your computer (or make a backup to a flash drive to keep it safer), there are also a lot of other sites out there which can store your BitCoins (You put your money in other people's hands - I wouldn't recommend this) 

On your computer you just have to be well aware that your system and data protections, firewall, antivirus and antimalware software are up to date. Don't be fooled by any scamming sites which tells you to download all kinds of applications, nor the ones who asks you to type in your BitCoin addresses. These programs may rip off your BitCoins. 

Treat your BitCoin addresses as safe as your bank account no. and pin.

Scamming sites like mentioned above already exists on the internet to trick people with normal bank account, and they even send emails where they ask you to reply back with your private bank information. Be cautious!

Be responsible for your computer's safety, using BitCoins or not, if you already use it to check your bank account online or store/access other vulnerable personal information about yourself.

- If you don't keep your safety updated, you should reconsider if you are responsible to have a computer at all!

 

BitCoins

I will blog about BitCoins and do my best to help new people get started. Such as how to buy, earn, storing or just get clarified what BitCoins are.