Tips for a beginner

[salparadise]

OK, first of all- I am brand new to this. Totally new. Please forgive any rookie errors, ok? 

So, with that out of the way. I would like some bitcoins. I have installed 'Bitcoin', have set it to 'generate coins', and have connected through a socks4 proxy to a pool website, bitcoinpool.com

Is this all I need to do to start mining? Nothing has happened yet, I have 1 connection and an ever growing number of blocks (79000 at the moment). When will I see some bitcoins being credited to my wallet? How many blocks/connections do I need? All the sites I've seen about it so far haven't exactly explained this process in simple language, so any support would be very much appreciated.

I am using a Macbook Pro, if that helps- 2.4GHz processor, Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB 1067 MHz DDR3 of memory.

So- any tips for a newbie?

Many thanks in advance,

Sal

[barbarousrelic]

Mining on a CPU is not time or cost effective. It will take probably 5 years or so for you go mine a single block on a CPU.

Mining is only worth the effort if you are using high-end GPUs, and even then it is debatable whether it is profitable.

If you want to get into Bitcoin, I would suggest selling some of your old stuff on Biddingpond, a free auction site that operates with Bitcoin. http://www.biddingpond.com  

[Jaime Frontero]

you'll wind up with 8 connections and about 124,600 blocks.  takes a little while.

that said, mining with a CPU (instead of a GPU) is unprofitable.

see here for mining hardware comparisons:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

EDIT:  and here, to calculate the time required to generate Bitcoin:

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

[salparadise]

Hmm, that site lots good- barely anything for sale on it though, which makes me think it's unlikely I'd ever sell anything.
Can you vouch for its legitimacy?
Also, they charge an insertion fee- which, seeing as I have no bitcoins, I wouldn't even be able to pay!

Any other tips?

[Jaime Frontero]

Hmm, that site lots good- barely anything for sale on it though, which makes me think it's unlikely I'd ever sell anything.
Can you vouch for its legitimacy?
Also, they charge an insertion fee- which, seeing as I have no bitcoins, I wouldn't even be able to pay!

Any other tips?

try The Marketplace:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=5.0

BTW, stuff does sell on BiddingPond...

[barbarousrelic]

Hmm, that site lots good- barely anything for sale on it though, which makes me think it's unlikely I'd ever sell anything.
Can you vouch for its legitimacy?
Also, they charge an insertion fee- which, seeing as I have no bitcoins, I wouldn't even be able to pay!

Any other tips?

Standard auctions are free, you only pay for highlighting/"Featured Auction" type promotions.

But things do sell on there.

[salparadise]

I'll check that out and try and get to grips with the marketplace.

Another question- what is a 'transaction'?

Thanks so far guys!

[shotgun]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction

[Leon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction

+1 lol beat me to it.

[imperi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction

+1 lol beat me to it.

His reply came a month and a half later, and he beat you to it? lol

[AngelusWebDesign]

ZOMBIE THREAD of the month.

It lives!!!!

[V4Vendettas]

Zombie just saw his first wiki