Make sure to encrypt your wallet with a very long, complex password.

I guess that it makes us "work" to sue this forum. Keeps spammers and people that aren't serious out of it.

Are you able to use Dwolla from Canada for bitinstant?

Welcome. Fellow East-coaster here too.

Most of them will be dead in a matter of months. Bitcoin works because you can actually buy things with it. Litecoin kinda works because it is transferable to bitcoins. Anything else is pretty useless at this point, but it's always possible for someone like amazon of facebook to create their own fork.