That's because I just joined this morning. 

You have to view BTC mining as a business.  The fundamental question is, "how long will it take to recoup my initial investment?"  In other words, how long will it take for you to mine enough BTC to pay for your hardware investment.

So you want to select the hardware that gives the highest hashrate per dollar (or whatever).  The higher the hashrate/$, the less time it will take to pay for itself.
Check out this bitcoin hardware comparison table: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#Single_Card_Setups

I was a cheap noob looking to get started so I picked a 6770 card.  The hashrate/$ was OK and the card itself was cheap so I was satisfied.

Having done this sort of drudgery in the past I appreciate what you went through to get it working in Windows.  It shows true devotion to your project.

Do I have to add anything for the build to find the Windows Platform SDK?

So when you build for Windows do you build under Linux or Windows?

OK, gotcha.  I actually found after fooling around some that if you comment the lines thus:

#PKG_CHECK_MODULES([LIBCURL], [libcurl >= 7.15.6], [AC_DEFINE([CURL_HAS_SOCKOPT], [1], [Defined if version of curl supports sockopts.])],
#[PKG_CHECK_MODULES([LIBCURL], [libcurl >= 7.10.1], ,[AC_MSG_ERROR([Missing required libcurl dev >= 7.10.1])])])
#AC_SUBST(LIBCURL_LIBS)

and add the line:

LIBCURL_LIBS=-lcurl

you don't have to change Makefile.am

Of course now it's bitching about include files in the Platform SDK.

I'm trying to build cgminer under mingw32 on windows but I'm having problems.  I've been searching this thread, reading ckolivas documentation on github and basically beating my head against the wall for a couple of days now.

I've successfully installed pkg-config-0.26, PDCurses-3.4 and curl-7.23.1.
After building libcurl from source under mingw32, I copied libcurl.m4 to /mingw/share/aclocal
I copied pkg.m4 to /mingw/share/aclocal

I also installed Microsoft platform SDK, AMD APP sdk, and AMD ADL sdk


When I tried building cgminer I did the following from within MSYS of mingw32:
autoreconf -fvi (ran fine)
CFLAGS="-O2 -msse2" ./configure

I get an error from .configure:

checking for LIBCURL... no
checking for LIBCURL... no
configure: error: Missing required libcurl dev >= 7.10.1

I'm positive I installed libcurl so I'm stumped why it's complaining.

I searched this thread and found someone else with the same error but I couldn't find what the resolution was.

BTW - I'm a software professional, not a n00b.  I've even used libcurl in the past with Visual Studio C++ before.  The mingw32 thing is new to me.

cgminer has a time scheduler built in, no fussing with cron and the like.

I heard she's into Furries. 

You're assuming that people with questionable morals/ethics are obvious based on their behavior on message boards.

An aside:  this reminds me of the business with the Reiser file system in Linux, written by the convicted murderer Hans Reiser
Good stuff but not universally adopted partly due to the "ick factor" with the man himself.

Is a monitor plugged into the card? If not, are you using a dummy plug?

I know but I'm lazy.  I want it automatic like OP.

Unless I'm missing something it doesn't look like cgminer does what OP wants.  There's a --sched-start and --sched-stop switch for turning mining on/off.  But not throttling the clock speed based on time.

I'd like to change the intensity based on time of day myself.  For instance when I'm not on the computer at night and while at work I'd like the intensity to be high, but low otherwise.

Because they won't let you buy guns or "gun related" products.

I hate them but they're damn hard to replace.

I've noticed this myself.  Guiminer reports I'm running a pretty solid 185 Mhash/sec but my speed as reported by deepbit is all over the place.
I've seen it as high as 260 and as low as 50.

If you check the "Single Card Setups" section in https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#Single_Card_Setups you'll see a column for Mhash/s/$.  The 6750 or 6770 are the cheapest, yet give fair performance of around 200 mhash/sec.

I'm getting a 6770-based card first.