I am curious about one thing to know if I'm wasting my time and should just cancel what's currently in progress.
Right now I'm downloading the chain on my laptop and I installed the bitcoin client to an external USB connected HDD. That said, when the chains done downloading, assuming I always leave it connected so it stays current. Can I do something like this when I get the netbook that's "bitcoin only".
1) Get netbook, setup bitcoin-qt/d on it.
2) Take alreeady up to date chain from external drive and put it on he netbook.
So is that doable or should I just cancel the current dl, remove bitcoin-qt/d and wait til I get the netbook to do everything ?
Edit:
There are two parts to a bitcoin transaction -- the instructions (send 0.1 btc from X to Y) and the signature, which authenticates that you own the coins in X.
The online computer has armory, your addresses, and bitcoin-qt. It doesn't have your private keys, so it can't actually authorize any transactions. But it knows your balance, just as if you had typed your address into blockchain.info. So you can use it to construct an unsigned transaction.
The offline computer has armory and your addresses + private keys. It has your private keys so it can sign the transaction that the online version created.
To make a transaction:
1. On your online computer, you create the unsigned transaction. This says "send 0.1 btc from X to Y". Save that transaction to a USB drive
2. Take that USB drive to your offline computer. Armory will sign the transaction with your private key and save it back to your USB drive.
3. Take that USB drive back to your online computer and use armory to broadcast the signed transaction over the network.
My phone just notified me of a payment received from a pool and this got me to thinking. Say I dont use the offline for a week cause I have no need to send funds. Well, say during that week, hell, even if I was using the system... I received say 0.57935058 BTC. How is the info updated to the offline system thus keeping wallet balances in sync between the two systems ?
My understanding of how it is supposed to work it is that the online wallet watches your balance. The off-line wallet stores your private keys. The balances do not need to be in sync. When you want to create a transaction you create from off-line, sign it and then import it onto your online system. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong.
