mechtech

I'm not sure that this is the best forum to ask. I speak from experience, I have been mining profitably since 2016, and that was already 'very late to the game'. 

The truth is mining is bigger than ever, home mining has indeed made a resurgence, and home miners are currently on the edge waiting for vega 10 release to see how those gpus will perform.

I'm happy to answer any of your questions and suggest some forums for you to visit and learn better, just PM me. But before even considering it, and I get you say it's just an experiment, but you should still be aware of your electrical costs,  electrical circuit needs, space needs, investment required, and heat management in summer vs winter.

There isn't such thing as free VPN. Maintaining a VPN costs money and you must be charged for that. However there are some VPN providers that give you like 500MB data that can be used through their VPN's. Tunnelbear is a good example of that. You can check them out.

Hi! Coin mining is not dead, in fact, it is more alive than ever.
You can use this web page to view what you can mine and the possible profits : http://www.whattomine.com/coins
You can set the hardware that you have, and the electricity you pay
Bare in mind that the algorithm " Ethash " is one of the most demanding, and can seriously push your hardware to the limits.
I mine monero myself.
If you have any questions, I'll be glad to help.

IMHO - Not worth trying to figure out how to migrate an image of Windows 8.
 
PROBLEM #1: He needs to buy Windows 10 - The free upgrade period ended July 29, 2016:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/12435/windows-10-upgrade-faq
 
Regardless if he decides to buy it or not, a fresh install on the SSD is still preferable vs. trying to troubleshoot whatever software is being used. Backup all important data, and re-install software and apps as needed.

If he decides not to buy Windows 10, you can download the install disc image for Windows 8 directly from Microsoft here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows8
 
Once the system is fully setup with all updates applied, now is a good time to make an image of the SSD OS install, and in the future, it can easily be cloned onto another SSD or HDD without having to re-install everything again. A great way to start 2017 if you ask me
 

As long as you don't overclock, an aftermarket cooler is not a necessity. Turbo mode on the FX6300 has two levelsif I remember correctly, and using the highest one will require a better cooler.
 
If you can get an aftermarket cooler for $20-$40 USD max, I would go for it. I built an FX6300 for my nephew already a few years back, and my first complaint was noise  That thing is loud. Plus a cheap aftermarket cooler will still perform considerably better than any stock cooling solution,

But no need to go crazy.

Set the output to 4k.

Not sure what you consider inexpensive but Sony Movie Studio is a very capable editor with lots of the same effects found on vegas pro for under 100 USD:
http://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-movie-studio-product-comparison/
 
I have used Vegas, and absolutely love it, but even I couldn't afford it. Even if I could, I'm thinking of just moving to an Adobe Premiere Pro license. In Canada it's $20 CAD monthly and seems like a much safer bet than splurging all that cash at once into Vegas. 
 

Based on the overall size and weight of your rig (barely anything even accounting for an LCD, cage, lens and whatnot), that Vanguard model would be an effective and affordable choice, esp given your desire to get product shots. Having used it first hand, it's very functional. Perhaps a bit too much for a FS7, but a teeny weeny a6300, even kitted to the max? Perfect. 
 
If you really want something smaller or lighter weight, you could look into carbon fiber offerings out there, but obviously that'll come at a premium. 
 
I'd suggest stocking up on a ton of u3 64gig cards, i get about an 1.2 hours of record time with 100mbit 4K XAVC on my A7sII's. 128GB is worthwhile if you don't want to swap too much, but as Alwin said it's not preferable to put all your eggs in one basket. 256GB sd cards are plain overkill at this point. 
 
As far as external batteries go, what I love about the consumer Sony models is their ability to charge via micro USB. So just slap on a decent sized portable USB charger, wire up and you're good to go. 
 
For lenses, it's really personal preference and how much money you're willing to fork up. Personally, this is where i'd drop the most of my cash and go the used route to save even more. The Sony 18-105 suggested is a decent run and gun telephoto to cover a wide range of situations. I'd also suggest tacking on a Sony 35mm f1.8 (equivalent to about 50mm on your 35mm sensor). This prime will give you that blurry background, bokeh look that's often associated with the film look and would be great for getting sweet product shots. It's also small and light as hell.
 
If you have cash left over after all that, the next upgrade you could consider external record like the Atomos Flame, which beyond being a great HDR monitor will breath new life into your camera giving you 4K at 4:2:2 DNxHR or ProRes and letting you put any SSDs you may have laying around to good use. 

My bad, I'm reading this topic on a phone and thought you were talking about SSD drives.... been a long day.
 
 
If you get the Sony A6300, don't start out getting any other lens then the Sony 18-105 f/4 OSS PZ lens.  This lens is quite sufficient for video, especially on a small camera like the A6300.  I use this lens with my Sony PXW-FS7.
 
256GB memory cards should be fine then, 512 for the moment is still pricey.  Though perhaps you can consider getting multiple 128GB too.  What if you have filmed for an entire day on that 256 card and the data either becomes corrupted or you lose it?  Picking memory cards is always a personal choice, I personally do not prefer to "put all my eggs in one basket" by buying super large capacity cards.  I prefer multiple smaller capacity cards so that even if one card is lost, chances are that only a small portion of the work I've done is gone forever.
 
Manfrotto makes a nice small video fluid head for small cameras.  I don't remember the exact model number, something in their 500 series.  Tripods are something you also need to think about, while smaller tripods are easier to travel with they are often less stable than larger or heavier tripods.  I also avoid gimmicky tripods (especially for video), like that Vanguard model where the center column can be moved to a horizontal position.
 

hey Mechtech,
 
Cameras
- That Sony is a pretty slick vlogging camera, but honestly if you're looking for more flexibility in shooting reviews and really taking advantage of the benefits 4K affords, I'd upgrade your A-cam choice to a Sony a6300 or equivalent that offers interchangeable lenses. With a suitable adapter, you could likely use any new or legacy lenses you may have laying around. Buy lenses used - B&H has a great used offering (i usually got for 9, 10s and above).
- We've got a bunch of those Yi 4K action cams for one of our 360 video rigs, and they've lived up to the hype - feel comfortable making that purchase. 
 
Lighting
Starting out, get whatever lighting packs you can get off Amazon or your e-tailer of choice. Definitely invest in a collapsable reflector/diffuser so you can mould lighting and take advantage of natural light. 
 
Tripod
Most likely your camera rig, even with external monitor, power etc attached, are so going to be light that you needn't waste money on an expensive ball head just yet. I still recommend the Vanguard Alta Pro 263AB to start out. Plus it'll let you prop the camera over your devices, kinda like the Edelkrone Stand Plus you liked. 
 

 
Stabalizer
I'd personally suggest the Steadicam Merlin 2. There are cheaper options out there but B&H is doing a rebate promo, so it can be had for $169 at the moment. 
 
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. 

Meh.. Deadmau5 did make a cool stream once where he discussed his custom installed antenna to get a high bandwidth line out in the woods.. now that's living the life, privatly secluded with gigabit speeds and close enough to the city for essential needs.

Meh.. Deadmau5 did make a cool stream once where he discussed his custom installed antenna to get a high bandwidth line out in the woods.. now that's living the life, privatly secluded with gigabit speeds and close enough to the city for essential needs.

Meh.. Deadmau5 did make a cool stream once where he discussed his custom installed antenna to get a high bandwidth line out in the woods.. now that's living the life, privatly secluded with gigabit speeds and close enough to the city for essential needs.

Meh.. Deadmau5 did make a cool stream once where he discussed his custom installed antenna to get a high bandwidth line out in the woods.. now that's living the life, privatly secluded with gigabit speeds and close enough to the city for essential needs.

Made my first purchase there last week for a couple of items, and I could have backed out from the strong exchange rate, but that's the reality for us in Canada. Beyond the exchange rate, shipping has it's pricetag for sending cross-border.
 
I'd love to see Massdrop try to tackle these limitations and bring better deals focused for Canadian buyers. 

I hope LTT starts reviewing this kind of stuff

For the first part; As you must have realized by now, a  fresh format to GPT is your first option, It helps with boot times on UEFI, but the only other use I know of is that it supports larger capacity HDDs. But the solution @cep0_ found seems great!
 
For having the OS on two drives, I currently have two machines with that setup and I always get the choice to boot from one or the other, so I find that strange that it's defaulting to a single port. But, I've only done two Win 7's and one with XP/7. I change the names of each OS with a bcdedit command to tell them apart at boot.

Strix for silence and size
G1 gaming for cooling and OCing 

Gigabyte for OC Performance
MSI for an Inbetweener
ASUS for looks, super low temps and no noise even under full load and lowest power usage.

Hey important note for all of ya who want to limit the CPU usage of the miner! 
minerd -a ziftr -o http://zrc.maxminers.net:3331 -u Username.Worker -p password -t 8 see the -t 8 at the end? the -t stands for Thread which in my case i've limited to 8. If you have a 4 core and 8 thread CPU just type in 4 and it will only use 50% ^^
 
I hope i could help the people who haven't found out a way to do this ^^
 
Cheers (^__^)/)
-TomsTechGaming

turn off the radio, disable dhcp
 
add mac address reservation.

Well you can make a config called ziftrcoin.conf and put it in your data directory(Read this for further information.). 
In this config you write:
server=1daemon=1listen=1usepok=1gen=1rpcuser=#################rpcpassword=###############rpcport=10332port=10333rpcallowip=############### u should set the username and password to something ^^
Cheers (^__^)/)

@MageTank - Makes sense, use the right tool for the job. For applicable workstations, they remain a great cost-effective choice, for much smaller audience.

Made my first purchase there last week for a couple of items, and I could have backed out from the strong exchange rate, but that's the reality for us in Canada. Beyond the exchange rate, shipping has it's pricetag for sending cross-border.
 
I'd love to see Massdrop try to tackle these limitations and bring better deals focused for Canadian buyers. 

I joined to meet like minded people who aren't total arseholes who lick the arse of a company who couldn't give two flying fucks about them (AMD, Apple, Intel ect ect).
 
So far there are a lot people i've met on here which meet that criteria in which is why I am still here.
 
Also I find that Linus Tech Tips are the best source of tech news and I like to support LMG which is why I became a contributor.