ok if lets say a handful or half a dozen people show some interest or if anyone can confirm they can connect to a node on the network and how many connections you have , what the current block height is I may consider donating a bit more time here in a few weeks unless other things come up.

And better late than never a HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone in the Blake 256 Family


I have a funny feeling this is going to be a great year.

note -- I mention in passing I have now tested Ahmed's 9.3 ix client for windows that I compiled on 15 different windows machines from 5 different (at least ip addresses) .

It works no matter if i start it with no wallet or import my wallet.dat.

A few times I notice it can take a few minutes to connect to the network.

These tests were all conducted on windows 7 and various versions of windows 8.

If you are running anything older I cannot predict if it will work or not. (you can alwyas try compatability mode).

Other items:


I also had a chance to test the mining of the iX client on Win with a few asic's. Works well on tests although no blocks were hashed since obviouslly a couple ghs is about as likely to solve a block as hooking up a 1950's egg beater to the network.  I mention this was solo iX not merged mining. But no errors.  Timing seems good.  Anyone else who has actually tested it in server mode who has different results or sees timing issues or other problems please let either myself or Ahmed know.  If you can post the error log from cgminer or bfgminer please do.   I think his work is solid.


On that note if you are really unable to connect to the iX network with any client post your debug.log file and when I have time I will look at it if someone else does not get to it first.  (you get this by clicking on Help, Open debug window, then debug log file. )


On 'community funded' items..... well I think if the community really wants or needs something they might be better to step up and code/write/create what is necessary.  iX was launched long before almost every other alt coin when there were no easy known methods of 'cloning' a coin or even hashing a genesis block.   So they may be 'silent voices' but I have a strong belief that there are some very knowledgable people out there who hold iX.

Finally (and this is just a random thought of mine nothing official)  I was thinking about experimenting with 'inserting' things into the iX blockchain like people have done to bitcoin. (secret messages, photos, ect....)

This is a pandoras box in a way since once someone put's something in a blockchain that is not supossed to be there it could become controversial.  For that reason I will not be 'releasing' or 'sharing' the results of any experiments. I was recently studying various methods of this for another project I am working on unrelated to iX and thought well..... the original or in this case 'the twin' of the original would probably be the easiest of all to mess around with.


Finally as we enter a new year let's not forget while most people today think we are all so cool with all our technology I urge you to look at this item that is over 40,000 years old. Far more is unknown than known.

 
(source for photo and more information here http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/lion-man-hohlenstein-stadel.htm )

no , just making an observation

if anyone wants to use an older client of iX coin they are free to do so by all means just as many many people on the bitcoin network use old clients

personally i think the latest source in line with btc 9.3 is my choice since over the years (including times when iX was not regularly updated) many security and other things were changed and improved in the code.

for anyone running merged mining nodes i can understand the older software may be necessary since i am really unsure how using new and old clients can work out (namecoin, i0 , i.e. are running 8.x I believe)

If anyone wants details of soecific items that have changed or been upgraded you can check this list for bitcoin, most of these items apply to iX in it's current state https://bitcoin.org/en/version-history  click on each version to see what was upgraded....

Let me say this describes iX except for obvious items bitcoin specific like checkpoints in the blockchain---- i realize if you are not familiar with the source code you may not be able to understand what an obvious vs. non obvious item but if you want to learn how iX coin or bitcoin works this is a good starting point.... looking up what the specific upgrades are and why they are considered upgrades----  also I never expect anyone to take my word for anything, (or anyone elses word) the code itself should stand on it's own. This is one of the greatest innovations given to us by Satoshi and others who improved the original code.  The ability to have dealings when you cannot trust the others in the system ..... a very general statement but true.  I believe earlier in the thread someone mentioned merged mining. I think this post by "Satoshi" to me at least indicates he came up with the basic idea and gave it his 'blessing'. Post from 12-9-2010

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.msg28696#msg28696

"addr" : "5.9.85.34:8337",
"services" : "00000001",
"lastsend" : 1419829584,
"lastrecv" : 1419829584,
"bytessent" : 288,
"bytesrecv" : 1160,
"conntime" : 1419829016,
"pingtime" : 0.00000000,
"version" : 32430,
"subver" : "",
"inbound" : false,
"startingheight" : 239249,
"banscore" : 0,
"syncnode" : false
},
{
"addr" : "73.184.232.14:8337",
"services" : "00000001",
"lastsend" : 1419829220,
"lastrecv" : 1419829584,
"bytessent" : 227,
"bytesrecv" : 820,
"conntime" : 1419829220,
"pingtime" : 0.00000000,
"version" : 32430,
"subver" : "",
"inbound" : false,
"startingheight" : 239249,
"banscore" : 0,
"syncnode" : false
},
{
"addr" : "167.160.36.73:8337",
"services" : "00000001",
"lastsend" : 1419829427,
"lastrecv" : 1419829583,
"bytessent" : 288,
"bytesrecv" : 75601,
"conntime" : 1419829232,
"pingtime" : 0.00000000,
"version" : 70001,
"subver" : "/Satoshi:0.8.6/",
"inbound" : false,
"startingheight" : 239249,
"banscore" : 0,
"syncnode" : false
},
{
"addr" : "108.170.37.114:8337",
"services" : "00000001",
"lastsend" : 1419829238,
"lastrecv" : 1419829588,
"bytessent" : 227,
"bytesrecv" : 940,
"conntime" : 1419829238,
"pingtime" : 0.00000000,
"version" : 32430,
"subver" : "",
"inbound" : false,
"startingheight" : 239249,
"banscore" : 0,
"syncnode" : false
},
{
"addr" : "180.248.20.235:8337",
"services" : "00000001",
"lastsend" : 1419829307,
"lastrecv" : 1419829585,
"bytessent" : 227,
"bytesrecv" : 1090,
"conntime" : 1419829306,
"pingtime" : 0.00000000,
"version" : 32430,
"subver" : "",
"inbound" : false,
"startingheight" : 239249,
"banscore" : 0,
"syncnode" : false
},
{
"addr" : "116.14.68.131:8337",
"services" : "00000001",
"lastsend" : 1419829365,
"lastrecv" : 1419829585,
"bytessent" : 227,
"bytesrecv" : 75321,
"conntime" : 1419829364,
"pingtime" : 0.00000000,
"version" : 70001,
"subver" : "/Satoshi:0.8.6/",
"inbound" : false,




appears everyone using old clients , in testing on and off i have yet to see anyone using the 9.x client


"startingheight" : 239249,
"banscore" : 0,
"syncnode" : false

I cannot imagine any pools using a windows client to mine, linux would be the choice...

There should be no conflicts on the ix network if a pool uses old builds vs. new ones.

I think an advantage of using the newer code is it might be faster (for things like writing to disk or latency) and in the case of iX the coin control feature is partially crippled (meaning you cannot send what would be one satoshi and set the fee to zero or what would be one satoshi in iX.... this was hardcoded in the source)    

The only time a pool 'must' really upgrade is if you make key changes to the source code and using the 'protocol' kick all old clients off the network which is not the case here.  

I am uncertain of the status of the other coins merged with bitcoin if they have updated to 9.x level but my guess is no.

If the merged mining is done with eloipool I would not be able to configure it for more than two coins myself and I think attempts to do so with some coins using older and newer codebases might complicate things.....  This is speculation on my part I have never ran a pool so others may have the answers.  

There is more information here :


https://gitorious.org/bitcoin/eloipool/source/70e71f71a69b48ddf73ef2943f6988422c56c5b9:README

and here

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Merged_mining_specification



edit 1 a security risk would be running old software that is easier to break into or wallets you cannot lock, for a user who wants to run the full satoshi client (qt) wallet I would suggest using the 9.x codebase.  Read the bitcoin wiki and list of upgrades in particular to how 'inputs' and 'outputs' are handled for more detailed information and other reasons the 9.x is superior to prior versions.

iX coin 9.3 has been compiled by me from the source coded by Ahmed and Ground Rod for windows and released on Vlad's github repository.

I tested it on windows 8 and 7 and it works great.

I did not release ixcoind or ixcoin-cli since they are basically being phased out of bitcoin starting with 9.0

The Windows-Qt Wallet is here https://github.com/vladroberto/IXCoin/releases

The source code is here https://github.com/vladroberto/IXCoin

Happy new year a little early !!

Thanks Ahmed for confirming it was complete.

Any feedback on how it is running for you is certainly welcome.

I am not releasing builds for linux they are not nearly as difficult to compile and if you are able to run linux I am sure you can build it easily.

Also unrelated to this on a prior post I wanted to acknowledge Frictionless for correcting my count of coins in the abe block crawler, yes you are correct it is 1/2 a million coins not 4 million as I was so excited when I found them I did not look closely enough !! Still 1/2 a million is a lot of coins to have been moved to one address..... but then nothing about iX is really 'normal' ....   

Strange things have gone on in the past and I imagine it will continue....

Thanks Blue

Ahmed is it published on github ?

ok , i only had a few minutes to play with it, going to try a fresh install next time out.... thanks again.... i think i tweaked too many things on this attempt !!!

edit, it now reads the .sifcoin blockchain in my root directory a little bit before throwing all kinds of crazy errors ! !!

did not get very far with abe.... it runs and all but not able to read anything


Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "Abe/DataStore.py", line 2525, in catch_up
    store.catch_up_dir(dircfg)
  File "Abe/DataStore.py", line 2785, in catch_up_dir
    store.import_blkdat(dircfg, ds, blkfile['name'])
  File "Abe/DataStore.py", line 2899, in import_blkdat
    hash = chain.ds_block_header_hash(ds)
  File "Abe/Chain/__init__.py", line 136, in ds_block_header_hash
    ds.input[ds.read_cursor : ds.read_cursor + 80])
  File "Abe/Chain/SiFChain.py", line 29, in block_header_hash
    return sifcoin_hash.getPoWHash(header)
NameError: global name 'sifcoin_hash' is not defined
Abe initialized. 

it's running now on a node I made but returns nothing obviously, i now understnad what Graham meant when he said it may be impossible since difining sifcoin_hash is not so straightforward as in other proof of work coins..... I will think it over if i come up with something clever will let you know....

the 8.x version of iX is not recommended, i would suggest anyoner looking to use a client go with the one on ixcoin.org which points to 9.2 iX coin source and windows qt done by Ahmed and Groundrod, tested also by me although no binary from me appears there (if you want my build search back in the threads here for it or I can up it to github) 

Guys please ,  see this and chill http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1993/10/msg00759.html

guys, did you ever think the right thing to do is just nod, wink and smile to yourself ?

there are many other 'facts' to find for those who look still the message is what is important

more so than exactly who the messanger is......

consider if you were involved  with helping form these concepts for others and wanted a little privacy

any game where i get to be the house since the house always wins if people play long enough

fyi this past weekend i worked on testing out an abe block crawler with the work done here on the english language thread

my efforts were unsuccessful although i am pretty famaliar with making these for sha 256 d , scrypt 1024 and blake 256

any ideas would be appreaicated please post code to github

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=240894.msg9862563#msg9862563

Thank you for adding Photon and Blake Coin to the exchange

just be careful on vircurex

At one time they were probably my favorite exchange, I used to love when you could pair the different coins with one another.


After the trouble 'Tom' had minus a little btc well what can I say I lost a lot of respect there.....


Still I noticed activity on a few things on vircurex is pickiing up.  Ix is holding up some volume probably equal to cryptsy more or less

I also noticed that in the past few weeks someone is really pumping i0 coin since it was trading a month ago for about one eighth of ix price and is now around one half of ix prices.....


i0 coin is weird in that i 'heard' not experienced it first hand for many years a lot of ppl could not get it to work or get connections but it continued to be mined on old p2pool nodes.   Legend has it that there is more 'lost' i0 coin than any other. 


Ironic as it is with it's shorter block times i0 coin running level db (which the last version I have is running on btc 8.x code base) actually scale up to almost 5x that of iX coin and 5x of bitcoin in terms of speed of payment and how fat and round you want to bloat a blockchain. Of course your trade off is lower difficulty and shorter block times are a little risky (Based on my research which I know not everyone agrees with)


Anyway the old word was lots of i0 as it was mined was just immediatly dumped at vircurex in the old days since it was considered the worst of the merged coins at the time.  I think that iX is holding well in an environment where a few alt coins a day take a powder (mostly from their own doing) and even bitcoin is on sale for the time being.  I bet the owners or major traders on Vircurex hold a ton of i0 coin , probably millions, no where to really trace any unless someone can point me to a working abe block crawler (yes I can build my own but I am not that curios about it. )


I always said I would be concerned about bitcoin if the dificulty were to drop several times in a row and many fewer were mining.

I think it pretty funny that it drops just less than one percent the last two adjustment periods.  It feels almost as if someone has their hand on the throttle and is lowering/raising it when they want. 

Also since in America and some other countries, owning, mining or using bitcoin in business is now something you MAY havre to figure in to your taxes if the fiscal year ends at the end of the calendar year I would expect the price of bitcoin to really tank hard since all the people who don't want to pay taxes on what they could owe will instead show a capital loss and be able to deduct it from other areas of the business return they file.  After the first of the year bitcoin may face less pressure to rise in cost from this factor alone.


Getting back on point with the to do lis:

1) Is anyone currently running an ix node ?  If so can you please post it and what version you are using.

2) Does anyone agree wtih me it is a little wild to keep 4 million iX coins in just 8 addresses ??  (if a key is compromised and this can happen in many many ways by splitting them up in batches of 1000 coins or so you greatly reduce your risk whether you are just storing the coins or whatever.
Honestly I think it is a little crazy to keep that many coins in a few addresses.  Still even if you say "bull Cinnamon the coins are safe", would it be cexio holding those coins ?  I think it likely.  It is 20% of all the iX in the world.  I wonder what will happen next. (hopefully most of you know how to read a block crawler , check out the links to those huge amounts of coin each held by one address) 

3) iX coin test net - Vlad and I discussed this , since no one has any thoughts on it and most probably believe it to be unnecessary I may just run it myself.  I think if iX is going to try to make a run at world class status everything that is 'known' to work with bitcoin  , for example storing notes and photos in the block chain can easily be done with iX.  Other things the testnet would be good for is , we hope the multisignature functions of the new
update will work as expected but even when the bitcoin developers tested them there were more than a few unpredictable things that came up.

4)

OK a few additional minor updates ---

First I renamed my repository to the name of the coin (I was badly in need of sleep when I did the last update)

It is on github here https://github.com/cinnamoncoin/sifcoin

Changes are outlined here, basically a few cosmetics and I updated the version of level db.

https://github.com/cinnamoncoin/sifcoin/commits/master

The windows-qt release is here on github https://github.com/cinnamoncoin/sifcoin/releases

Finally I contacted Coins-e to see if they would add Simple Inflation Coin to Voting to be added to the exchange.

(Who knows maybe this weekend or sometime soon I will use Graham's contributions to make a full block crawler)