Thanks for the response!
There is no problem with disk space at all.
I checked the client and I only downloaded it for the first time a couple of weeks ago or so.
I seem to remember that I got the beta client due to some problem with the regular client.
The About box says QT 4.8.2

Any further tips?

My client got as far as 99.11% and than it hung on a particular block.

It took me about a week to get that far, and it's not great for the machine to be syncing, so I don't want to repeat the process.

I've rebooted the client several times, but it keeps hanging on the same address (I can give the number if it helps).

Is there anything I can do for it to skip, accept or ignore that block and continue and finish the sync?

The beeb buys some good documentaries occasionally. But it is relatively supportive of the wars in the Middle East, the war on terror and all this immoral stuff and it has some values that are not up for debate such as the monarchy.

If you want honest world news, RT is much better, or Euronews.
PressTV is a bit radical but they have a lot of very good points and definitely worth watching.

It's a country that is under the thumb of the USA. They are not allowed to develop in a way that's good for them. Right now, the fastest way in this oppressed country to get rich, is to smuggle drugs to the USA. And apparently guns are smuggled back the opposite way.
Obviously the guns that the cartels have are not legally held in most cases.
Mexico is truly the dirty side of the "shiny" coin of the USA, stuck in a VERY unhealthy symbiosis with the USA. Gun laws are certainly not at the root of the problem with violence there.

This is such a non-issue to discuss, I mean the proof speaks for itself.
Lots of countries that are significantly poorer than the USA have lower murder rates precisely because they control guns. And no, that does not automatically turn the country into a dictatorship.

If Americans WANT to live in a country with the kind of murder and massacre rates that you have, just because you enjoy the idea of carrying a weapon yourself, well I guess it's your prerogative. But to argue that this is "safer" is ridiculous. There is no proof to support that and plenty to support the opposite.

Thanks for the tip, but what IP address should I use then?  I don't understand the purpose of the workaround...?


The client is still stuck and no amount of rebooting the client seems to remove it.

If I as an ex developer and now IT project manager can't cross the technical threshold for this software than honestly I don't know... 
I really wanted to use Bitcoin, but I have only so much patience, faith and time .....

Reminds me of when I wanted to recycle my rubbish after just moving to the UK, but found it just wasn't feasible back then. I had to reluctantly throw away my aluminium cans and batteries. In this case Return to Evil Paypal, Mastercard & co.
 

Edit ----- oh no it's still stuck at 99.11, it's just stopped displaying the progress bar for some reason.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fed up with this now. It's been a week.

I'll give it one more day, if this client isn't up by then I am dropping bitcoins and return again in 6 months to check if the technology is a bit more user friendly.

Don't feel like using any web client after the latest scandal I read about here.
I want this local client and I want it to work.

With a name like Nikolaos I guess he's Greek. It's unbelievable how tight things are for regular people there right now. I feel so sorry for them, their entire country has been taken for a ride ever since WW2.

And somebody just puts a large sum on his account just like that. (didn't get how much it was) When he probably needs it the most. It's understandable that he got tempted. Sure he might have to explain that in heaven one day but for goodness sake this vendor should have been more careful and the naming and shaming was disgraceful regardless.

Well I'm a newbie and I cerainly will not be using blockchain.info
I see that Danny Hamilton who recommended it to me had second thoughts too.

Thanks for this amazing response! (above) I'll return to this many times. You explain things so well.

-----------------------------------------------------
More installation problems:

My bitcoin client has stopped displaying the progress bar and I think it actually went through all the blocks (took about 5-6 days, I lost count).

Now it's been doing this (see below) for the last 6 hours....  [feel like banging my head against the wall, I am fed up with this now]

Any idea what this is about and how long it would take for it to finish, or if there is anything I can do to speed it up...?
How can it STILL be out of sync, after all that it was doing for 6 days? What is it doing now?! (see status at bottom).

It doesn't matter if guns are totally banned tomorrow in the USA - there are enough floating about already, to last the crooks, lunatics and fanatics another century. It becomes an evil spiral because nobody wants to be caught out without a gun if they think there's a genuine risk they might be attacked with one.  It's just fortunate for us in Europe that there is the Atlantic to protect us (although there are plenty of Americans with guns at the military bases scattered across Europe).
But just look at Mexico to see how things could end up!
I think the whole gun thing is cultural in the USA.

What are you talking about really? Don't you know that the USA invaded Iraq and plans to maintain permanent presence there?

If you are referring to the knife trend in the UK, it is ILLEGAL, kids in gangs on bad estates have them anyway. Obviously they'd love to have guns like in the USA, but fortunately it's simply not available to them. Thank goodness for that I say.  The police confiscate these knives at every opportunity and regular kids certainly don't have them. It's illegal to buy dangerous knives, so such knives are home made. 

Still, the average person cannot do anywhere near as much damage with a knife as they can with a gun.

Good for you!
If you feel an overwhelming need for a "fix", then head over to RT.com, PressTV.ir or Euronews.com

English speaking news, free of ads, no commerical angle and a different side to the story if you live in a Western country.

Before you know it you'll actually start thinking for yourself and opening your eyes to what's really happening.

Don't worry everyone else in the civilised world agrees with you. It's just a certain type of American who believe that "the right to bear arms" or whatever trumps absolutely everything else.

I believe their convictions about this harms their country and benefits nobody but the arms industry. But it's not my country, so not my business.

But just thought you ought to know that everybody on the European continent in principle, would agree with you on this. Even Canadians, I believe!

You really explain things very well - I get it!   

Sorry for coming on here and whingeing about the time it takes to synch. I realise bitcoin is the work of genius and that this is birthing pains or whatever, and a small price to pay... just irritated that I have to wait.

But say I want to keep an account ready with some money for small expenses online. Like paying this usenet site that I mentioned, paying a membership for a club and a bit of this and that.....

To achieve that, I want to transfer money onto an "account". Is the account the Wallet (parent in the relationship) or the Address (child in the relationship).

Say my wallet is called "Freja's wallet".
blockchain says my address is: 1ApeaRCTBuPStVrA1zK2d3xTM5VmDCTaVj  (not real address)

Where is the money/value stored? I thought it was in the address? Or could I put £100 in the wallet and transfer it over to unique addresses as and when I needed?

And say that I become suspected of terrorism and the police turns up and seizes my computer.  They figure out that my address was the one I gave above. I had not been following the advice you gave, but used the same address for everything. They could then (if they were clued up) read my financial history as easily as if they had my Visa statement.....?!!

If so, I'll definitely use unique addresses!

But the privacy and safety then comes down to human error and/or access to a physical machine or somewhere where the user has saved the data.


 

Intressant kommentar Luno. Tack för förklaringen!

Men vad du säger är att det egentligen inte spelar någon roll om Danmark är med i Eurosamarbetet, eller inte...? (Om jag förstår riktigt?)

Sverige har blivit sämre att bo i under de senaste 15 åren, på ALLA sätt. Det är därför "ekonomin går bra". Vissa banker och storföretag, dvs.

Alltså: De har sålt järnvägen, tunnelbanan, bussföretagen, många sjukhus, privata vinstdrivande skolor är tillåtna.

Det städas inte ordentligt längre i städerna, det är skitigt och skräpigt överallt. Sjukpeng är extremt låg, socialbidrag är nästan omöjligt att få och det är nästan ingenting. Och så vidare!

Välfärdsstaten finns bara i folks huvuden nu för tiden. Men alla svenskar har fått höra "vi är bäst" sen de var små och många förstår inte att detta är rena lögnen.
 
Men visst går det bra för Sveriges ekonomi. Priset är att bli som vilket skitland som helst i Europa. Definitivt inte något "folkhem" längre!

Jag tror dessutom att Danmark ligger för Sverige i "välfärdstabellerna". Det första alla svenskar tittar på när sånt kommer ut, är var de andra nordiska länderna ligger. När jag var liten var Sverige alltid först, sen Danmark och Norge. Nu är det Norge, Finland/Danmark och Sverige sist!

Man undrar varför. Invandringen, tror många. Kanske.... Jag vet inte, men flyktingpolitiken är dyr och ineffektiv, det är klart. Eller kanske folk jobbar för lite och inte är tillräckligt produktiva. Alla politiskt korrekta projekt är ju dyra också och Sverige är helt fanatiskt med sånt!

Iran is NO WORSE than the USA, probably better.
At least they are open about who they are and what they believe in, instead of BS:ing about "freedom" and "democracy". The regime may not have everybody's support, but certainly it has the support of the majority.

Fortunately for Iran they have decent military. I don't think the USA actually dares to attack since Iran is a serious enemy that would not be easy to defeat. I don't care at all if Iran has a nuclear bomb and I understand why they might want one, assuming that's what their nuclear program is about (which they deny).

Watch PRESSTV and just shut your ears when the anti-Israel rhetoric gets too much. Other than that it's a very good channel with some amazing documentaries. And free commercials.

Again, thanks for all that really clear and solid info. I understand.



So I'd have ONE wallet somewhere, then attach different bitcoin addresses to it?
If that's best practice, I'll do it, and yes, I believe in privacy, although I am not super paranoid. But payments to a particular cause I believe in, payment for filesharing activities and whatever else I want to do in the future is nothing that my bank (and whoever accesses their records) needs to know about.

Great to know about the plugins and other ways to protect yourself.

It's taken the QT client over 5 hours to go from 16,000 to 15,100 blocks remaining. In light of it's getting increasingly slower this is exponential at this point... There is simply no telling how long the client will need. Does anyone keep an eye on the situation with this, or actually care? Or did you all set up your clients years ago and shrug at what's going on with newbies? I realise that not much can be done, but if this is just going to get worse in the future, then it's untenable.

I'd say 99% of non-geeky people would have dropped off a LONG time ago. I'm sticking with it, but for all I know right now I might not be done until after New Year's. Those last 1000 might take a week.

In other words, you participated in the totally unjust and unrighteous US invasion of Panama?! OMG.  That is certainly nothing to be proud about!

Thanks a lot for the very helpful response. 
I'll certainly consider all your feedback.

I found the wallet address, like you said.
I'll look into online wallets, it makes sense to try that.

What would you say were the advantages of running the local client over anything web based? (at the speed it's going now, it's probably another 3-4 days.... at least.... I'm letting it run, but frankly at the moment it feels hopeless)

Edit: I opened an account at bitchain.info but it's got a different address than the one that's set up in my bitcoin-qt client.
I would prefer to have just one account. But there was no way of changing it on bitchain.info, that I could see.