There is a cash deposit method in New Zealand.  Is there a Westpac bank nearby to you?  That would be a good option for you .. .simply walk in, hand over the deposit ticket from BitNZ, pay cash.  Boom, done.

If you don't have a Westpac near to you, you can still start the order, and then send the deposit ticket to a friend, relative, coworker, or someone else who will deposit cash for you and does have one nearby.  You then send money to this party that helps you via PayPal.

 - https://bitnz.com


For anyone else reading along thinking that would be nice but a New Zealand bank is far away, here is the comprehensive list of where cash deposists can be made.

 - http://www.BitInstant.com (Deposit at major banks, 7-11, Walmart, CVS, Moneygram, etc., or in Brazil using Boleto or Banco Recomendito, or in Russia, using Qiwi or Cyberplat.)
 - http://www.CAVirtEx.com (Deposit cash (CAD) at several banks)
 - http://www.Spendbitcoins.com (Deposit cash (AUD) at a bank in Australia)
 - http://www.MrBitcoins.com (Deposit cash at a bank in U.S. (USD), India (INR), Australia (AUD))
 - http://BitcoinNordic.com (Purchase CashU or UKash in dozens of countries)
 - http://www.BTC-E.com (Deposit cash (USD) at bank locations in Russia)
 - http://www.BitNZ.com (Deposit cash (NZD) at Westpac in New Zealand.)
 - http://www.MtGox.com (Deposit cash (GBP) at Barclays)
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87094.0 (Deposit cash (USD), $500 or more at B of A, Wells Fargo and PNC Bank in the U.S.)


The fees aren't trivial but you can use a credit card to purchase by using VirWoX where you can buy SLL using your Serve card as a credit card, then trade SLL for BTC:
 - http://www.VirWoX.com

This probably does't help you if you are looking to spend the coins anytime soon, but you can buy physical Bitcoin, paid for with credit card:
 - http://memorydealers.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=bitcoin


Or find a local trade.  There's someone selling in Aukland:
 - https://localbitcoins.com/location/NEW%20ZEALAND/aukland/


All kinds of options:
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins

If a creditor, whether it is someone who held a bitcoin balance or maybe an ISP, forces BitFloor to file for bankruptcy, your USDs are gone -- and probably will then go to the lawyers who will be paid first.

 - http://www.blakeleyllp.com/content/2011/05/02/a-proper-purpose-for-commencing-an-involuntary-bankruptcy-petition-preserving-a-preference-action
 
 - https://blog.bdo.com/index.php/2011/06/23/treatment-of-customer-deposits-after-a-retailer-files-for-bankruptcy/

If BitFloor finds investment capital and regains solvency, you can always add funds back into your account.  In the meantime though, don't think you are doing BitFloor a favor by not pulling every one of your USDs out.

Heh, thank you for your kind words.

However, Bitcoin doesn't need heroes.  I don't think Bitcoiners should even want heroes.

Heroes who are a threat to a State that becomes fascist might be arrested, and detained indefinitely.   If there are just a couple dozen Bitcoin heroes that could be rounded up and Bitcoin disintegrates in their absence with faith in it as a decentralized system lost as a result, then those seen as heroes have done more harm than good for Bitcoin.

If Bitcoin is going to succeed it is because a decentralized digital currency provides a defense against a system that has co-opted our medium of exchange and turned it into a medium of control and a system abused by a bought congress.  That opportunity for Bitcoin to serve this role is what will draw in the helpers needed for Bitcoin to succeed.


But as far as my posts, I feel that putting in the time to help to answer questions that people have helps me to know what solutions might work and also what problems remain to be solved.  For instance, the "How can I buy bitcoins with PayPal / Credit Card" is a question asked daily.  But my response telling them "sorry, not possible" doesn't really solve their problem.   The solution might come from a CoinBase which is using its experience in fraud prevention to build a wallet system that can also be used by its customers to buy bitcoins using credit cards for payment.

So if Bitcoin is going to succeed it is going to need more and more approaches to actually solving the problems that are still faced.  That's where heroic efforts are needed.

But that doesn't mean volunteers providing the equivalent of level 1 support aren't needed.  And with the rapid growth in the number of new topics, new posts and pageviews -- the need for helpful community members is greater today than ever.

New topics:


 
Data source:
 - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmcTCtjBoRWUdHJuUE1mUkFxa3A0eHBDQkxZLVVFZmc

(Incidentally, even though the metrics are below the peak from last year, the quality of posts and the vastness of the Bitcoin community are so much higher than mid-2011 had,   Yes, even with the bitcoinica/pirate/mnw/atlas etc trolling levels we have today, mid-2011 was an order of magnitude worse.)

So instead of needing a hero I think what instead was needed was a first follower.    Because "there's no movement without the first follower":



 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

[Edited: clarifications]

It is getting a redirect to itself.  That would be like a denial-of-service attack.

But that could have been an accidental setting change, a misconfigured error page, etc. Who knows.

If you are in the area, then perhaps weigh in here:

Where to meet in Southern California???
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108532.0

2012-09-11 nwn.blogs.com - US Central Command Wants Counter-Terrorism Finance An

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109121.0

US Central Command Wants Counter-Terrorism Finance Analyst with Second Life & Bitcoin Experience to Deploy in Afghanistan


 - http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/09/us-central-command-looking-for-second-life-bitcoin-expert.html

Also mirrored as a paste here:

 - http://bitbin.it/t3hLO9VK


And there was an article on the job posting:

US Central Command Wants Counter-Terrorism Finance Analyst with Second Life & Bitcoin Experience to Deploy in Afghanistan
 - http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/09/us-central-command-looking-for-second-life-bitcoin-expert.html

This was a previous post, but it just now has been made available with captioning in English.

2012-08-14 yle.fi /Ajankohtainen kakkonen (Finnish TV2) - Bitcoin

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100924.msg1185296#msg1185296

So your counterparty is claiming to have sent you funds, but you are saying you haven't received them. 

Liberty Reserve has a way to confirm the funds were sent:

The sender can provide to you the transaction details:

 - Date of Transfer
 - Source Account  (sender's)
 - Destination Account (yours)
 - Batch
 - Currency (e.g., USD)
 - Amount

Then enter those here:

 - https://www.libertyreserve.com/en/services/search

Then there's no question as to whether or not the payment was sent.

One out-of-band place to post site status is Twitter, but that doesn't mention any problem:
 - http://twitter.com/Bitstamp


[Update: Service from the site has been restored.]

Here's another person that ended up in that scenario, though was able to eventually get it figured out:


 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.0

With no trust history, lucky to find a trade at any price when trying to pay with PayPal:

Here's a great post on the topic:




Quite simply, depositing cash at a bank or 7-11, Walmart, CVS is going to be the fastest and easiest way.

 - http://www.BitInstant.com (Deposit at major banks, 7-11, Walmart, CVS, Moneygram, etc., or in Brazil using Boleto or Banco Recomendito, or in Russia, using Qiwi or Cyberplat.)
 - http://www.CAVirtEx.com (Deposit cash at several banks)
 - http://www.Spendbitcoins.com (Deposit cash at a bank in Australia)
 - http://www.MrBitcoins.com (Deposit at a bank in U.S., India, Australia)
 - http://BitcoinNordic.com (Purchase CashU or UKash in dozens of countries)
 - http://www.BTC-E.com (Deposit cash (USD) at bank locations in Russia)



The fees aren't trivial but you can use a credit card to purchase by using VirWoX where you can buy SLL using your Serve card as a credit card, then trade SLL for BTC:
 - http://www.VirWoX.com

This probably does't help you if you are looking to spend the coins anytime soon, but you can buy physical Bitcoin, paid for with credit card:
 - http://memorydealers.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=bitcoin


Or find a local trade:
 - http://www.localbitcoins.com


All kinds of options:
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins

Perhaps StompRomp would be or knows someone who might.  They accept bitcoins so would presumably pay with bitcoins.

 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84285.0

The FAQ is a pretty good resource to help bring you up to speed.  Specifically:

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#I_was_sent_some_bitcoins_and_they_haven.27t_arrived_yet.21_Where_are_they.3F

Will these customers be informed that the entire amount of funds they've entrusted with you are then one heartbeat away from being lost forever?

That message simply means it realizes the blockhain is out of date and isn't updating.  One of the possible reasons this occurs is if the version is too old.  But that is not the case in your instance.

Is it downloading blocks?  If not, is there a connection problem? (the client shows the number of connections with a notification/status icon in the bottom right.)

It all depends.  There are Anonymous VPN hosting and web hosting services that only accept bitcoin and are growing and doing quite well.   

Coinabul accepts only bitcoin for payment and thus doesn't have to mess with the banking system, which for a relatively low margin business like precious metals / bullion, that is important.  They seem to be growing as well.

SatoshiDICE, for instance, of course has no option -- they exist only because they accept bitcoins.

For other businesses, limiting their customer base to only those customers that will pay using bitcoins is a real handicap.  A business that focuses on its customers generally tries to avoid barriers that make it harder for a customer to hand over money.  So when it makes sense, bitcoin can be offered as one of multiple payment methods for the sites customers.

If there are higher costs due to chargebacks with credit card, then the service can provide a discount for purchases paid for using bitcoins so that those paying with a payment system that carries the risk of chargeback have the option to either continue paying for that convenience or save a little money and pay using bitcoins (by taking the discount offered.)

Ya, that alone doesn't say the method but I'm presuming it means that a physical compromise of one site doesn't get you the keys.  You would need to get access to two of the three locations.  Yet if any one location were lost, the remaining two would still provide the keys and a third could be rebuilt from the two.    I don't know that's what they do, but for partial key storage, using the term "like RAID" gets the idea across.