Say my Grandma wanted to use Bitcoin

[lord bookington]

I say my Grandma, what I really mean is me, regardless the same problems exist. I am completely computer illiterate. I played sports as a child while all my other friends stayed indoors playing Age of Empires, learning how to write code and whatever else it is that computer people enjoy doing. I can't even believe I managed to figure out how to use a forum, and now that I have clocked my 4 hours and 5 posts I can post with the big boys.

There are only 3 things keeping me from purchasing Bitcoins.

1) I don't know how to secure my wallet.
I have tried to figure it out, I've read the wiki and other posts on the forum, I've got as far as downloading TrueCrypt and running bitcoin and its directory through the new drive I've mounted. However I don't know if it is properly protected and if someone could still find my wallet.dat file. I'm not sure to whether using TrueCrypt is even the best way, there seems to have been a few posts regarding that on this site. Thoughts?

2) I don't know how to backup my wallet.
Is it really as simple as going into the directory and making a copy of the wallet.dat file? If I copy this file onto a USB, then don't use my Bitcoin client again, then make a new wallet on a different computer and copy my original wallet.dat file over onto this, will I be able to access my coins? Then I need to think about encrypting my wallet.dat file, and due to the lack of Age of Empires as a kid, I would never know how to do this correctly.
            
3) I don't know if my Bitcoin client is connecting to the network/system properly, it says 0 connections 0 blocks 0 connections.
(I realise that is probably the noobiest question of all, so sorry if you are shaking your head in disbelief of my ignorance right now.)

I struggle to think that I am the only person in this situation, there must be others like me out there, although if they were any less competent than me they wouldn’t be on this forum due to the fact that they don’t know what an internet is. I am extending a plea to the Bitcoin advocates and evangelists out there. If there is an interest in expanding the Bitcoin community it is absolutely necessary to get some simplistic setup steps, advice, even youtube videos. Bitcoin has tapped out its computer literate market, make it easy for average Joe to get a bitcoin, and you will increase demand, then you might see some corresponding increases over at Mt Gox.

There’s your motivation,

Now imagine you’re setting grandma up on Bitcoin over an email and solve problems 1 and 2 please.

Much Appreciated
-Bookington

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[imperi]

Everything in the future will be done through popular and trusted web interfaces or mobile apps, and handled in remote servers, a.k.a. "the cloud". Right now it is very developer-ish.

[lord bookington]

I understand that user friendly interfaces and online systems will be set up in the near future, clearly there is demand for them, however I (and many people just like me I assume) want bitcoins now. Therefore need to learn how to use the current system properly.

[SgtSpike]

1)  Hard to say, without actually seeing it.  Send me your wallet.dat, and I'll tell you if it secured properly.    I kid, I kid.  But basically, if you move your wallet.dat from your bitcoin directory to your truecrypt drive, and it no longer exists in unencrypted form, your wallet should be safe from anything and everything.  But you can only use it when it is unencrypted, so it's really only useful if you want to create a separate "savings" wallet.

2)  Just copy the wallet.dat to other locations.  A USB drive, external hard drive, send it to yourself via email, etc.  Note that I'd recommend encrypting any backups though, since someone could grab your USB drive or external hard drive or hack into your email and grab the file, if it is not encrypted.

3)  Be patient.  It'll eventually find some other people (nodes) to connect to.

[imperi]

I understand that user friendly interfaces and online systems will be set up in the near future, clearly there is demand for them, however I (and many people just like me I assume) want bitcoins now. Therefore need to learn how to use the current system properly.

If you want to use bitcoins now then you need to learn some relatively-technical stuff with risks of screwing up. Otherwise just wait until people do lots of work making user-friendly and accessible interfaces.

[rezin777]

1. Secure your computer. If you are planning on holding a lot of Bitcoins, consider buying a new laptop to use specifically as hardware wallet, and nothing else. Encrypt your wallet when not in use. There are many different ways to do this. I suggest searching and reading how other people take care of this. Take a look at this thread. https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=5194.0

2. Yes, make copies of the wallet.dat. Encrypt the copies.

3. Either give the client some time to make connections, or open port 8333.