Sorry about that.
I didn't expect to get any merits on that account, so it's caught me out a bit. I will be awarding the sMerits, but I'm not sure which board I should visit to award them/it. I should probably save them for new members making good posts on the beginner's board.

I nearly called myself Jet Cosh, but then I thought it was too restrictive.

Whoops! I posted this using the wrong browser.

I think the DVD is SATA-2, so it will be slower. Also, I realised that an extra SSD will probably use a bit of electricity, and I want to keep power consumtion down. If I need extra memory, I can use an SD card, or a USB stick.

I suspect that my suggested changes are about as far as I should go. Any further, and I might as well buy a new machine.

It also requires you to stamp on Windows. I was quietly looking through Bitcoin Talk and a few other boards whilst I was tethered through my mobile, only to discover that Windows had run out my data bundle, and spent £5 of my balance, while it intalled "enhancements" that I would need to spend time trying to remove.

The SSDs are much thinner, in fact I could probably get two in the space.
I'm removing the HDD, and replacing it with an SSD for extra speed, and to reduce the power consumption


[quote ]
If at all possible, see if you can run without a swap partition once you have enough RAM. Your ssd will appreciate it.
[/quote]

That's another idea I like. If the extra memory is recognised, then I'll try that.

Thanks for the replies - and here is a bit more info. The notebook is one of a custom run manufactured for a major UK retail chain, and it was good value at the full price. I bought the shop demo model, and saved £200 if I remember correctly, but it may have been a bit less. That was well over a year ago. The processor is a Core i5-4210U @ 1.70 GHz with 8Gb of RAM. The processor spec is on this page
https://ark.intel.com/products/81016/Intel-Core-i5-4210U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_70-GHz

I need a notebook to support my mobile projects, but I don't run the node full time, just enough to keep it sync'd. I want to move to an SSD because I have noticed that running videos from the hard drive can lose 2 hours of battery life. The Ubuntu node on my netbook, which uses an external SSD, seems to be able to sync 4 days of data in less time than Windows takes to sync one day with an internal HDD.

I really like the idea of replacing the DVD. I've got a DVD player in the TV, so I don't ever use it on the computer.

I decided on the Samsung 860 because it has a much lower power requirement. Speed is about the same as the older 850 I believe, but it has a much longer expected life.

The extra memory is for the video processing. The Ubuntu netbook only has 2Gb of ram, and that runs a node without any problems. I chose Ubuntu studio because it includes a lot of things I like - Audacity, Gimp, Brackets and some others that I want to try. I haven't done any video editing, so it's handy to have a range of products to play with.

I gave you a merit to show that not all people are equal.

Following my recent problems caused by the failure of my notebook during an unwanted and unrequested clandestine upgrade by Microsoft, I decided to switch to Linux. The primary cause of the failure was dust on the fan, and I fixed this fairly quickly. Whilst the case was split, I realised that the machine could be upgraded. For a picture of the motherboard, please click the link below.
1000x662 image of my HP notebook motherboard

I use this machine to run a full node and a variety of other applications. These include web site maintenance, and picture editing. I want to expand this to include basic video and audio editing. The plan is to escape from Windows 10, and move to Ubuntu studio. The hardware changes will be the addition of an extra 8Gb of memory ( assuming that the spare slot is enabled), and to replace the existing 2Tb HDD with a 2Tb SSD - probably a Samsung 860 EVO. I will buy an external USB case for the existing HDD so that I can recover the Bitcoin blockchain. Ubuntu will be installed from a memory stick. I have installed Ubuntu, and moved the blockchain before, so I don't anticipate any difficulties there ( what an optimist ). I synchronise the blockchain via public WiFi, so I expect a reduction in the time this takes.

Can anybody see any problems with this plan, or suggest a better solution? The processor is a core i5, and it looks as if this is hard soldered on the motherboard, so I'll need to live with that. I have two backups of the blockchain and my wallet, so I don't believe my Bitcoins are at risk.

I still feel that if you have the disk space, and you can go online to sync' your blockchain at least once every two or three days, that you are better off running a core node. It gives you more flexibility and control. Using an online wallet is effectively the same as using a fiat bank, and Bitcoin was designed to escape from their controls.

Well I do - did you read my reasons for creating the account by the way?

We all have our projects, and I hope that this one is seen to be beneficial to the forum.

Russia is not the only country that has developed it. Boris Johnson has confirmed that Britain has an active development plan, and expanded Porton Down just before the attack.

Russia has no motive, but the UN does. The recent statement by the US about the way that Russia is supporting Assad - the democratically elected leader of Syria, confirms that the US is on a campaign to create an event to start conflict with Russia, It is to Russia's credit that they are not rising to the bait - yet.

I really want to disassociate Jet Cash from merit discussion, and putting Talk Merit in my sig would prevent that.

I own a variety of domain names including JetCash.com, TalkMerit.com, BitcoinScammer.com, CryptoBounty.com, BitcoinVirus.com, and probably about 50 others. Some of which I use on Bitcoin Talk. What I could do is to list the domain names I use, and the Merit Talk alt, on the Jet Cash domain site. This goes a bit further than your request, and it makes the whole structure transparent. I can then post a link to the Jet Cash domain in my Talk Merit signature, but you'll have to wait for it to be clickable.

I don't really have a lot of time, and that is why I try to use it efficiently, hence my stress over the posts that slow down thread scanning.

Thanks for that suggestion, and it makes sense in part. I was intrigued to see my activity going up in single increments from 1 up to 14. I posted about missing the update when I saw I had an activity of 1, and I was surprised to see it increasing almost post by post until it got to 14. It must be a continuous process of monitoring posts, rather than a single look at current counts. All credit to Theymos for accepting a higher server utilisation, in return for a system which seems to be more accurate and beneficial for members.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Whoops! It looks as if I miscalculated here. Talk Merit is my alt, and this thread was intended to ensure that there was no deceit involved in its creation, but my attempt to introduce humour and mystery seems to have backfired. So why did someone who is opposed in principle decide to create an alt? I suppose that there are three main reasons.

- I have been accused of merit hunting in a few posts, so by moving posts on the most rewarded topic away from my account, I thought that I could negate that. I started this thread in an attempt to link the two account openly, so that there is no prospect of accusations of merit farming.

- As a Hero, I have a different perspective on BitcoinTalk, and I wanted to see what the problems were for new members. This seemed to be the ideal way to do it. I would never have noticed the hourly update of my activity had I not done this, and that remains a mystery to me, but it is probably not important enough to pursue.

- I have been fairly active in scanning the threads to find posts to award with merit. The merit system seems to be working, and my reading of threads that I may not otherwise have opened, has been rewarding. The threads about blockchain synchronisation would have been buried before the recent spam reduction for example. It has also been mildly distressing, as I seem to find more people to ignore than to award with merit. This may be as a result of my impatience, as I read most of the threads for information and interaction, and not as an alternative to visiting an art gallery. There are still many members necro-bumping threads with rubbish, and multiple sequential quotes of a oversized post make several threads unusable ( to me ). I decided that I was becoming abrasive, and my posts about merit and posting habits that I disliked seemed to be contrary to forum policies. I decided that it was best for me to distance myself from these topics, and to focus on the main reason that I am a member here, and that is to understand Bitcoin, and the new innovation that it provides in payments and the storage of wealth. I'm also interested in economies that free one from land based restrictions.

I apologise to the forum if members feel that I have misled them. I would like to continue as Jet Cash, the Bitcoiner, and avoid all discussions about merit, and its hunting. I will increase my use of the more serious boards, and continue to award merits there. I think those are the most valuable boards, but they seem to attract fewer awards for many posts that are excellent and helpful. I will continue to ignore members who make posts that slow down my reading of threads, but I will keep that as an unpublished personal function.

Merit discussions seem to be an important issue in the Bitcoin Talk forum, and I would like to continue to comment in some of the merit threads as TalK Merit. I have registered the domain name, and I thought that if I relaxed, I could make a more positive contribution. If you feel that this is wrong, then I am happy to close this thread, and stop using the account. I hope you guys can accept that my motivation was to attempt to continue the improvement and usability of the forum, and accept my apology if I have misled anybody. As far as I know I have not broken any forum rules, either in spirit or in stated policy.

I'm quite interested in this problem, and I would be grateful if someone could run through the sequence of events. I've never used an armory wallet.

I understand the sequence in a standard core download. You install the core software, and then either you give it an empty directory for the blockchain, or you give it a preloaded directory for it to check and synchronise. Once it has done that, does it create the wallet, or is that done in the initial core installation?

If you have downloaded 99% of the blockchain, would it not be possible to copy the created directory onto an external SSD ( or an SD card), and take it to another computer to install a new version of core, and give it the copied blockchain to see how it handles it?

If it has downloaded 99%, and then is failing each time, then the fault must lie in whatever operations core does when it completes the download. Were it to be a faulty block, then the additions to the blockchain between downloads would reduce the percentage.

At what stage do you give it an Armory wallet? Can you perform a standard installation, and add the armory wallet afterwards?

It's pretty quick here in McDonalds in England. Maybe Ronald has got a cable link to America.

I think it will be interesting to see how Trump spends the massive amount of money he's just been given. I'm sure most of the stuff in that great tome that is supposed to be the target will be ignored.

Is it country specific? I'm on a variety of public WiFi services, and I use cell phone tethering, and I don't seem to suffer from any major delays, and I would have expected that if there were any problems, they would be magnified for me.

Did you delete the faulty blocks?

Here is my past cropping up again - have you checked the cable connections for the hard drive? Make sure there isn't any magnetic interference around as well. I'm clutching at straws, but you never know.

I shouldn't worry too much about hard drive size. I've got a node running with an external 256GB SSD. That's really a bit small, and I'll replace that pretty soon, or maybe I'll prune it, that would probably make more sense. I've also got a couple of 2Tb HDDs, and I seem to be able to move the external drives around between core installations. The software seems to be pretty robust and well written. I'd be grateful for some advice on any dangers from swopping these copies of the blockchain around.

The important thing seems to be to move the whole directory onto another disk if you are copying it, don't just move the block files. Also, I believe that it is worth investing in an external HDD to use as a backup of the blockchain. I don't think I could face having to do another download.

That doesn't really answer your original question though. It is my opinion that it is worth downloading the whole blockchain, even if it takes a month to do it, but it shouldn't take anything like that length of time. The download is interruptable, and it runs well as a background task. I hope that I am confirming the previous comments with my experiences.

The real irony is that I believe the agent was first discovered by the British.

The whole incident has escalated way out of proportion, especially as there still seems to be a paucity of physical evidence. I shudder to think what the reaction will be if it turns out that it is a Soros created event, and that May is just the puppet Unicorn.

The problem that I have with these ETFs is thinking of a way that they can enforce physical delivery. You could insist that coins are sent to an escrow address with a time restriction, but that requires an escrow agent. It also cuts out the possibility of uncovered shorts. The current Bitcoin ETFs seem to rely on cash settlement only.

I feel uncomfortable with them, so I haven't looked into the market. Maybe I should dabble a bit to see if I can get a better understanding. It is obviously going to be important in the future.