By that do you mean the screensaver I downloaded?  It displays a bunch of pretty bitcoins all over my screen, and reports what it is doing.  It has yet to solve any blocks.

These are the kinds of things my friend is asking.  I keep trying to explain it is working on Bitcoin stuff, not stuff for companies or governments.  But, hey, if she doesn't Trust the information being given, if she doesn't believe the explanations, she doesn't Have to download and install the bitcoin app at all!  She can still use bitcoins by getting an online account with My Bitcoin.  There, paranoia problem solved.

Thanks.   I cross posted and linked to this thread.  I don't know if that will convince her of exactly what the bitcoin app is supposedly working on when it is set to Generate Bitcoins.  I don't have mine set to do that.  It totally chews up the system resources, the stupid Windows XP OS does not like it, or something.  CPU usage shoots up to 100% and stays there, memory fills up, the hard drive goes crazy from trying to handle swapping, and every single thing crawls to a near halt!  Plus, it is apparently far too slow at doing any work for me to Ever actually solve and create a block, and earn bitcoins.

So, I'm running a screensaver and joined a Mining Pool.  The screen saver, I've noticed after looking at the logs, usually only makes the CPU shoot up to about 90%, the hard drive doesn't go nuts, and the computer doesn't practically crash, plus it's only working on tiny pieces of the overall problem.

I used to run SETI@Home, I really liked that screensaver, it looked neat, but, then they changed how it works, or something, and I just gave up on it.

I've tried and tried to answer a friend of mine, I guess I'm just not grasping this well enough myself to really explain it well enough.  Could someone please give a really precise answer as to exactly what the Bitcoin app is calculating or working on?  Is there any reason to think blocks of data are being worked on for companies or governments, like SETI@Home?

The forum where I'm discussing Bitcoins is Imaginative Worlds.  Here is the thread, so you can see my flailing attempts to explain.

http://imaginativeworlds.com/forum/showthread.php?20007-The-Truth-About-Money-Silver-and-Gold&p=362904&highlight=bitcoin#post362904

If you can come up with a really great answer, please post both here and on IW.  If you only post here, I guess I'll cross post and link to the thread.

Thanks.

That is no help.  See the screensaver post I just posted, I finally figured out how to get it working.  What is not explained on the site is exactly what it is asking me to put in.  So,  I just put something in.  It was hit and miss trying to get this working.  It needs to be explained better.

I have no idea what the score means, sorry.  Actually, I have no idea what you are talking about, where would I even see a score?

I think it isn't working because I still haven't figured out how to register a worker in the pool at http://mining.bitcoin.cz:8332.  Until I figure that part out, I don't think it's going to even grab anything to work on.

Ok, I've finally figured it out.  There needs to be better instructions for how to get all this working, I shouldn't have had such a hard time.

So, I'm going to explain what I did to get my screensaver to finally start working on something.

I logged into http://mining.bitcoin.cz after successfully creating an account there and verifying my email.  Then I told it my bitcoin address for my wallet, send threshold, etc.  Then clicked on register worker.  This is the part that really screwed me up!  I did not understand what it wanted from me.  I put in Gateway, because my computer is a gateway computer, so, why not.  Right?  Then put in a password, and saved it.  Now I have a registered worker.  Back at the screensaver I put in, for the URL http://mining.bitcoin.cz:8332, then for the username I put <username>.<workername>, remember I called my worker Gateway, put in the password, clicked OK, and ran the screensaver.  Now it is actually getting something to work on and working on it.  Yay!

I can't figure out how to register a worker.  I have a screensaver that is supposed to do mining, I guess.  I put in the URL http://mining.bitcoin.cz:8332, my user name, and password from the website into the screensaver.  Now what?!  On the site I clicked on register worker, and I have absolutely no clue what it is asking for!

Uhm, I didn't see a setting for aggression.

Ok, I've joined a pool, I put in the user name and password, and the URL.  But when I run the screen saver I see lots of little coins, but the info in the corner looks like it is doing absolutely nothing.  Why?

I don't really care that it's supposed to be hard, I don't mind reducing my coin generation to 1 coin per week, or something, all I care about is contributing to this thing without killing the computer.  I'm primarily a Gift Economist, I don't mind giving what I can to others.  But when that giving becomes so detrimental that I basically can't do anything else, I have to stop it.  For instance, I am on Freenet, TOR and I2P all the time, I'm glad to allow some part of my system's resources to be given and shared.  But not if it slows things down so much that nothing else works, then I have to shut something down.  Like I'll frequently shut down Freenet, because it sometimes likes to absolutely HOG things.  I have absolutely no idea how to join a mining coop or pool.  I need more help than the instructions I read when I looked at one of the pool sites.

I downloaded some bitcoin screensavers, and have no idea how to set them up.  The readme file was no help.  Can I use one of them to join a pool, and use the GPU rather than the CPU?

I don't understand what to put into any of the blank spaces for these screen savers.

What do I put into these fields?  If I leave them empty, is it going to see my bitcoin app, and send bitcoins it manages to generate to my virtual wallet?

URL ?
User Name ?
Password ?
Status URL ?
Threads (CPU) ?

What if I only want it to use very few threads, so as not to overload my poor old computer?  How many threads does it absolutely need to work?

Hello, I've just barely started using Bitcoins, got a tiny trickle from a site that gives a little away every day.  Yay!   But when I tell the Bitcoin program to start generating coins, it very quickly chews up all processing power, and the computer slows to a crawl, then basically won't let me do much of anything.  Nothing I do helps.  I can shut down everything else, basically, then tell bitcoin to generate coins, and blam, I can barely do anything at all with the computer till I finally tell it to stop generating bitcoins.

Is there any way to make this darn thing not chew up system resources, or cpu cycles, or whatever?  You know, a little background trickle of work that doesn't freaking shut down everything else?

Thanks.

- Krepta.