I'm sure many of you already have a long term backup strategy in place for those precious private keys.

However, I thought I post here about the M-Disc from Millenniata for those who are unware that they can use a cheap DVD writer to store their data for 1000 years or more using the modern equivalent of carving the data into stone.

There is an interesting write up from PC Pro about it here: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2012/07/19/m-disc-the-dvd-that-lasts-forever/

And the main site: http://millenniata.com/

Recently I've been receiving emails from various lobbying groups asking for donations. Invariably they all require some kind of credit card transaction or PayPal and so on. I've starting taking the time to respond to each using a fairly standard form letter that I thought I'd share here in case others find it useful.

Perhaps if enough of us respond using variations of this letter adjusted to our own preferences it may start to have an impact. I've tried to follow the rules laid out by the wiki article on press releases, let me know where I've introduced fail.

...
Hi,

I recently received an email from your group asking for donations. I noticed that you are wishing to promote "a more just economy" and to that end I would like to draw your attention to Bitcoin. Bitcoin provides an additional donation strategy that has the following features:

+ You do not have to pay any fees to receive bitcoins
+ You do not have to register with anyone to send or receive them
+ You can exchange bitcoins for most currencies (certainly USD, EUR and GBP) any time or day of the week (24/7)
+ You can receive donations offline (i.e. you can print the address on paper handouts if required)
+ You can receive donations from anyone, anywhere in the world (Bitcoin is global)
+ You are immune from boycotts by payment processors
+ All the software required to operate them is free and open source
+ Bitcoin itself promotes a fair and just economy by offering people an internet currency not under anyone's control (no government, no corporation, just a collaborative global effort)

In order to receive payments via Bitcoin you need only do 2 things (overall time to complete is under 5 minutes):

1) Download a free and open source program to generate a Bitcoin address (think of it as like an email address to receive donations)
2) Post that Bitcoin address on the same page as your other payment options

An example of how it can be used is shown here: http://gary-rowe.com/agilestack/2012/01/09/how-to-accept-bitcoins-on-your-blog-with-no-code/

You can find out more about Bitcoin at the main site here: http://bitcoin.org

If you decide you want to try it out. Then see here for the main client choices: http://bitcoin.org/clients.html. I recommend MultiBit for your requirements.

If you have any further questions, I would be happy to answer them for you.

Kinds regards

Gary

Hi all,

Could anyone interested in the Stack Exchange question and answer site for Bitcoin please make a commitment to support the site. It's currently at 94% so it won't take much to tip it over the edge.

You can sign up here: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/30763/bitcoin-crypto-currency

The Stack Exchange sites are excellent for providing high quality answers to questions about their topics (trolls don't prosper), and it will really help adoption of Bitcoin for people who are unfamiliar with it since their format greatly favours Google searches.

Here's hoping...

Gary

Brian Armstrong has released Bitcoin for Android as a free and open source application to the Android Marketplace (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.bitcoinandroid).

It's a very slick way of sending and receiving Bitcoins on your Android phone. Easy install, but make sure that you do it over Wifi since it provides a recent block chain to get you up and running quickly, and that's a few megs.

Technically minded folks who want to examine the source code to verify that it's not going to rip them off can do so at GitHub (https://github.com/barmstrong/bitcoin-android).

Receiving coins can be done by instant QR code generation (so another phone can view the screen and pick up the wallet address), or by sending the wallet address via almost any mechanism you can think of (SMS, email, Twitter, Facebook, FriendStream etc etc). It will copy the wallet address to the clipboard if you want to allow you to paste it anywhere you like.

Sending coins can be done by either scanning a QR code (ideal for merchants presenting prices in BTC) or by manual entry (from clipboard if necessary).

It's really aimed at keeping pocket change available for small day to day transactions since your phone could be stolen (just like a real wallet could be picked) and for that it's an excellent choice.

Give it a go and continue to build the Bitcoin economy - the merchants need you :-)