Thanks for the advice, but this is a bit of a research project for me, so I will download the entire chain. I understand that I can copy it onto a USB stick or SD card, and then I can move it around between computers. I might see if I can use it on a chromebook or a mobile phone for example. The download is actually a background task despite all my chat about it, so it isn't taking up too much of my time. Of course there are no b/width or electricity costs associated with it either. I've already learnt a lot about Bitcoin, mainly as a result of replies on this board, and I've also discovered that another project idea of mine is not viable. This was using solar power for Bitcoin mining.

I suspect that MacD pays for b/width at the national level, so they will get a good deal. The profit on the coffee that I buy is probably much greater than the computing costs that result from my actions. And that includes the free cups of coffee that they give me. Also I buy snack wraps (I don't buy burgers), and I have some friends who visit me and spend money. I suspect that it is a good symbiotic relationship with MacD making a reasonable profit out of it.

You can check views by looking at the server stats for an image, and clicks by looking at the referring url.

It's now saying that I have 1 year and 51 weeks left to download. I reckon that the green bar is about a fifth of the way across. There must have been a massive increase in use over the last few months. At this rate, blocks will be added at a faster rate than my download can grab them.

You should never register a domain name through your hosting provider. If you have problems, you may have trouble moving to a different host. Some charge massive amounts to release your name.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you use free hosting, then they may put adds on your pages, or they may filter your traffic. Search on the boards for more info about "free" hosts.

The dollar account is with Citibank in the UK

Well I'm now into the last 2 years, and the traffic is stable and regular. It's running at about a tenth of the speed about 3 hors ago, so I guess there is a lot of daytime traffic right now. I might break off and use the shopping precinct link later this evening.

The local employees don't know much about the WiFi apart from setting up customers to use it. That's probably all they need to know normally. There is an issue at this site. Recently the aircon had a major overhaul, and since then, there has been intermittent interference over the transmission. They have said that they will get their IT guy to look into it, but so far there has been no action. I can't connect my Chromebook here since the work, but it works well everywhere else (including other MasD branches). There are also regular dips in the block transmissions as show in the network analysis tool.

MacD seems to be quite progressive when it comes to technology and payment systems, especially if it involves cost reductions, so it may be that they are already evaluating Bitcoin, but that would be at a corporate level. I might write to them in the future, but for the moment it might be best to leave well alone until somebody says something.

When I've set up my wallet, I expect to be running Bitcoin core over public WiFi connections. So I've got a couple of questions with regard to this.

Will my activity have much of an impact on other users of the WiFi service?
Will it increase the costs for the service provider by a noticeable amount?
Do many other users run the core regularly over public WiFi?
Is my activity likely to result in the blocking of relevant ports, and thus remove the facility for other potential users?

I am aware that there will be some personal security issues, but I hope to discuss these in another thread when I understand a bit more.

Windows firewall says that Bitcoin core can use any port - should I change that to be port specific, or just leave it alone?

I gather that once I have downloaded the blockchain, I will be running as a node every time I start Bitcoin core. So what will my computer be doing? As I will be using public WiFi until I finish my project (and maybe for some time afterwards), I won't be contributing a lot to the community, so what can my computer do?

Will it be supplying blocks to other users downloading the blockchain?
Will I be part of the transaction verification process?
What other services will I be able to contribute?

A number of reasons really. I'm concerned about the stability of fiat currencies, and I want an alternative for cash deposits. I used to trade a lot with the US, and I've got a dollar account. I used to be able to deposit dollar cheques at no cost, but now they want to charge me, and it's no longer worth collecting small cheques - bitcoin is the obvious alternative. I'm also interested in the technology, but I don't understand it fully at the moment. I've had some really helpful comments and advice on this board, and I'm pleased that I have found it at the beginning of my Bitcoin experience.

I'm guessing the red is nacks and retry requests as a result of receiving faulty packets (at MacD). I might use that graph to illustrate the problem.

I'm now down to about 2.5 years on this link. I'm down to about 40 minutes on the battery, so I'll quit until I can recharge tomorrow.

Thanks for all your help and info, it's been really useful.

That's it. Thanks for posting the link, it was really helpful. It's all green here. In fact the received traffic is in Mb and the sent is Kb. At MacD, the graph was mainly red. I know there is interference on thir hub, because I can't connect the Chromebook there. I didn't realise it was that bad though.

WooHoo - fewer than 3 years to go.

The only way I could use a static ip is if I hosted a domain and used that.

I've switched WiFi and it's much faster. I think I'm the only one using the service available for a whole shopping precinct.

So, if I'm creating a node, how can I use that to gain more advantage than just a simple wallet service? I know that mining is no longer an economic option.

It's a new computer with an Intel core i5 processor, so I don't think it's the machine that's slowing things down.

atm, I'm watching a film on utube via the same wifi (but using the Chromebook), so I expect that slows down the download.

It's quite interesting. It looks as if they may monitor activity, because it seems to slow down after a while. If I log off, and log on again with a different address, then it speeds up again. I hear what you say about the port, and that answers the next q. I was going to ask.

When I started, I could click on the activity bar, and I got a pretty activity graph. That facility seems to  have gone. Is there a way to get it back?

I'm using free WiFi from a variety of locations. This is for a project of mine, so I guess I'll put up with the wait. I'm at MacDonalds at the moment, but I'll move to a local supermarkety shortly. It's not as bad as it sounds, as I can run the sync. as a background job, and do some other work whilst it's going on.