i just looked into it and its like this when you have a different datadir:
no matter if the bitcoin client is running or not you end up with an armory client in offline mode, a wallet balance of "(...)" and -1 satoshi funds.
the armoryengine function for loading the blockchain already has a parameter for the path, armory is just lacking that one line in the optparse section + another line to pass the parameter along.
just tested it and it works like a charm 

just looked at the code, there is no such option, you can only specify a path for the armory settings file.

i just dont believe there will every be a fun game coming out of this.

what i wanted to say comes down to this:
you can live off donations but you can live off donating. even if every single organization accepting donations accepts them in bitcoin, even in bitcoin only, bitcoin is still not a viable currency. people only spend a little amount of their total money on donations and they have no incentive to convert any more money to bitcoin then they intend to donate. but if a wide variety of attractive products can be bought in bitcoin there is no upper limit to the amount of bitcoins you can hold with the intention of spending them. the shops are the chicken in the chicken/egg problem.

so in my opinion the easiest way to reach critical mass is to get a limited number of online shops with a very big potential customer base - i.e. selling stuff thats is usually sold online and shipping it to almost anywhere cheap - to accept bitcoin. for example computer hardware and electronics, games/movies/music, porn/downloads/gambling. as soon as you can create the feeling that you can hold bitcoins because you will spend them eventually its downhill from there.
donations, local restaurants etc. are imho mostly good for the marketing effect. even if new hampshire completely switched to bitcoin for everything but internet shops it wouldnt change a thing for the rest of the world. its very good advertisement and the price for a bitcoin would probably skyrocket but thats it. doesnt do a thing for a merchant in california who has no bitcoin customer base and nothing for the customers there either.

that being said good advertisement of course can be a game change by itself.

most of those pages are for donations, which do nothing towards building an economy for bitcoin. the only thing you can actually buy is baklava. i think thats even better than alpaca socks 
i dont really see a critical mass there.

dude, that IS the protection.
hoping to get someones private keys like this is like hoping quantum effects randomly teleport you into fort knox.

works on win7 64bit here. shuts down properly, too. the new calculator seems to have a bug tho. when you click "get keys from wallet" nothing happens except the button greys out. doesnt matter if i have one or two wallets.
otherwise everything seems to work. everything i looked at in 20min anyway.

how about a cooperation? "bitcoin wallets and submachineguns - offline transactions have never been more secure!"
SCNR 
when etotheipi first announced armory i thought "oh thats an interesting name - if i ever write a tool for it i name it 'explosives locker' or something". but i certainly didnt see this one coming...

have you had a look at the jobs at coinworker and the payment? how is that not controversial?
i would rather be dealing drugs...

langlebigkeit ist doch bei vielen produkten heute gar nicht mehr erstrebenswert. klar, beim schraubenzieher ist das toll, aber was bringt es beim handy, pc oder navi wenn die dinger 15 statt 3-5 jahre halten?
haltbare produkte sind doch in einer sich so rasant entwickeln gesellschaft häufig ganz lange vor ihrer durchschnittlichen lebenszeit völlig veraltet. für so eine gesellschaft sind dinge wie schnell entwickelte prototypen, effiziente massenproduktion und recycling viel relevanter. gerade beim recycling leben wir natürlich noch mehr oder weniger in der steinzeit. aber ich bezweifle, daß das in einer andereren gesellschaftsform wesentlich schneller gegangen wäre. recycling ist, solange die rohstoffe leicht zu gewinnen sind, einfach ein unheimlich undankbares geschäft.

vorstellen kann man sich viel. die frage ist, wo die konkreten anhaltspunkte sind, daß ein komplett alternatives system besser funktioniert. insbesondere dass es auch besser funktioniert als ein system, das konservativ das bestehende verbessert.


auch heute "müssen" viele dinge nicht hergestellt werden, werden es aber trotzdem. die annahme, daß ein alternatives system wie durch zauberhand jegliche verschwendung, fehlplannung oder künstlich erzeugten konsum verschwinden lässt, ist doch etwas naiv. niemand kann wissen, ob so ein system nicht seine eigenen auswüchse und absonderlichkeiten ausbildet. prinzipiell davon auszugehen, daß alles absolut ideal läuft, ist aber mit sicherheit zu optimistisch.

bei beiden punkten, also sowohl die optimierungsmöglichkeiten im aktuellen system als auch die potentiellen problemen bei der alternative fehlt mir doch ganz arg die sorgfältige analyse. nur zu behaupten "alles ist kaputt und so wird alles besser" ist ein bisschen wenig.


modularität und austauschbarkeit ist sicherlich wünschenswert. trotzdem braucht man spezialisierung. und bei manchen komplexen projekten braucht man dann doch wieder tausende leute, die du nicht einfach so in kleinere projektgruppen zerlegen kannst. brabus hat auch über hundert mitarbeiter und die arbeiten "nur" an autos. wie sieht es mit chips, großflugzeugen, kraftwerken etc. aus?
großflugzeuge werden z.b. nur von zwei herstellern produziert, die jeweils mehrere zehntausend mitarbeiter haben. glaubst du wirklich, es ist effizient, zwanzig großflugzeughersteller zu haben, die alle riesige montagehallen brauchen und spezialisiertes fachpersonal?

no.
armory wallet files are fundamentally different from those of the original client. all addresses are generated from an initial seed value. that way the wallet file doesnt have to include the actual addresses. it stays small and backups automatically include all future addresses you use.
you could still fake a conversion to a standard wallet.dat, but this copy would always include only a finite number of addresses. plus you cant convert it back.
the implementation is also different since armory doesnt use berkely db. i guess its still possible but might be a lot of work. i think there is quite a lot of stuff to work on thats more important than that.

qft!

i think if you had to put a number to the value of current armory codebase its probably somewhere in the range between 100k-500k usd. for example it has 23k lines of code according to etotheipi. if you put something like 10k logical lines of code (just an estimate) into the cocomo model you end put with an estimated production cost of 270k usd and 27 months of work. of course that doesnt say anything about the actual code quality, the amount of original and innovative work he has done (alot imho), how well its documented and so forth. but i think it still gives some indication of the actual value his work would have as contract work.
due to the amount of innovation armory contains the value for bitcoin as a whole will likely be much higher in the end.

ich denke mal, der schlechte support könnte auch durchaus unter "wachstumsschmerzen" fallen. die gibts ja erst zwei jahre und die versuchen vielleicht bis zu schnell zu wachsen, insbesondere auch was funktionalität angeht.

no one. but that does mean there will be no money, it just means most people wont have it. so pretty much like now i guess.

was produziert denn dein produzenten netzwerk bisher so?

good idea. except that the bitcoin network is gone then. very sad. but we still have our cool browsers to look at meaningless numbers...

chicken egg problem?

considering the fact that it took etotheipi just seven months to get armory to where its now, i think lightyears are not what they used to be. that guy is definitely traveling at warp speed. i think its realistic to hope that armory becomes usable within the next few months. of course, being "proven" is nothing you can rush. but i hope it becomes an alternative full client, because it really has great potential.

still, gavin i think gavin is doing a good job and his conservative approach with security as the main priority is the best choice as long as the original client is without a real alternative.

das entscheidende für das gefühl der moralischen überlegenheit ist doch nicht, daß man irgendwas anders macht als "die bösen", sondern dass man für das getane hehre beweggründe hat