Shack Tastic

I would just recommend buying bitcoins directly. Mining only becomes profitable when the value of bitcoin increases, where as just investing in bitcoin will get you a greater return than operating your own miner. The only reason you would want to GPU mine is if you plan on mining x11, x13, x15 coins or other exotic algos. If don't know what those are, then don't even consider GPU mining. If you think bitcoin value will go up, the best way to make money on that rise is to buy the bitcoins directly, without mining. 

I'm seeing links to all sorts of bitcoin miners here, and advice about not mining at all, and I'm worried the OP might actually be swayed into buying one of those, or not get involved at all. My advice is, is you're looking to mine, buy scrypt asics...you have a much easier chance of fulfilling ROI than on bitcoin (which you'll truly never ROI on unless BTC prices go up). My real advice though would just be to put your money directly into bitcoin itself, and if you feel inclined to, some promising alt coins (not the pump and dump day trade kind) which I'd be happy to talk about with you. Mining scrypt or investing directly into bitcoin is going to be your best bet on making ROI, and not making yourself and cryptos seem stupid to your buddies. Some background on myself: I started with 1x 7950 mining in feburary (of which you can find my noob posts) and 2x the money of my 7950 in 1 month by trading the right things. Over the last couple months, I've put considerably more money into the crypto-scene, and made out very well by picking long term promising coins of which i bought and mined, so I'm no amateur in the crypto scene. Hope this short spiel helps you make the right investments regarding cryptos.  

So, sometime today, my LTC wallet showed this transaction: f03baecbf52b69e9ca119c79e398eb603acf1dcc10c76f0d56adb35248d34609-000
 
which took ALL of my LTC out (-1.30021502) and sent it to this address: Li3EKDnD4WXNse7yHt81PtPQRo1mEAEiPK
 
ALSO, sometime today, my VTC wallet showed this transaction: 53504cb5bec1f96000633433817767c4b09c54e8cdfb7b543b077b19659642ab-000-001
 
which took MOST of my VTC out (-31.60) and sent it to this address: Vby2EMRBHFRPHpbpVhV7cKaGKZ86Mv853z, while another transaction: 53504cb5bec1f96000633433817767c4b09c54e8cdfb7b543b077b19659642ab-001
took the REST of my VTC (-0.01891654) and sent it to this address: Vwm8eo8KhSRZ2W1eYX71pB2LkD5MNAUAfC
 
 
I basically got robbed $45 ish, and while I'm not entirely concerned with the money that i lost, I'm concerned that it happened, and that others or myslef won't be able to get it back. I believe this attack to be related to heartbleed, so i advise anyone who hasnt been attacked yet to keep their wallets offline for the time being. Only my personal wallets on my computer were compromised, and the money on my exchanges remained SAFE. AGAIN, everyone should keep their wallets offline until these things get fixed, as you could lose a lot more than I did. And if anyone can help me out, that would be greatly appreciated.
 
P.S. I have a few other wallets that had coins in them that weren't affected...it seems as if they specifically targeted LTC and VTC. I had no BTC on my computer.
 

I have no clue why you feel like that but I have a STRONG feeling you highly misinformed about bitcoin and its beneficial use-cases. Currently, when you buy something online, you give the site not only your name, but also your house address, email address, credit card info, and whatever other info they want to have. Bitcoin allows you to purchase something online without giving up your information to sites, and the hackers who hack those sites...Also, in order for money to be sent quickly around your country and even the world requires massive fees placed by money transfer companies(who do need to profit). Bitcoin allows you to send money to anyone in the world for free, or an extremely small miner's fee. I don't know what your gripe with crypto-currency is, but information is key in making an informed decision on a subject. 

So, sometime today, my LTC wallet showed this transaction: f03baecbf52b69e9ca119c79e398eb603acf1dcc10c76f0d56adb35248d34609-000
 
which took ALL of my LTC out (-1.30021502) and sent it to this address: Li3EKDnD4WXNse7yHt81PtPQRo1mEAEiPK
 
ALSO, sometime today, my VTC wallet showed this transaction: 53504cb5bec1f96000633433817767c4b09c54e8cdfb7b543b077b19659642ab-000-001
 
which took MOST of my VTC out (-31.60) and sent it to this address: Vby2EMRBHFRPHpbpVhV7cKaGKZ86Mv853z, while another transaction: 53504cb5bec1f96000633433817767c4b09c54e8cdfb7b543b077b19659642ab-001
took the REST of my VTC (-0.01891654) and sent it to this address: Vwm8eo8KhSRZ2W1eYX71pB2LkD5MNAUAfC
 
 
I basically got robbed $45 ish, and while I'm not entirely concerned with the money that i lost, I'm concerned that it happened, and that others or myslef won't be able to get it back. I believe this attack to be related to heartbleed, so i advise anyone who hasnt been attacked yet to keep their wallets offline for the time being. Only my personal wallets on my computer were compromised, and the money on my exchanges remained SAFE. AGAIN, everyone should keep their wallets offline until these things get fixed, as you could lose a lot more than I did. And if anyone can help me out, that would be greatly appreciated.
 
P.S. I have a few other wallets that had coins in them that weren't affected...it seems as if they specifically targeted LTC and VTC. I had no BTC on my computer.
 

I have no clue why you feel like that but I have a STRONG feeling you highly misinformed about bitcoin and its beneficial use-cases. Currently, when you buy something online, you give the site not only your name, but also your house address, email address, credit card info, and whatever other info they want to have. Bitcoin allows you to purchase something online without giving up your information to sites, and the hackers who hack those sites...Also, in order for money to be sent quickly around your country and even the world requires massive fees placed by money transfer companies(who do need to profit). Bitcoin allows you to send money to anyone in the world for free, or an extremely small miner's fee. I don't know what your gripe with crypto-currency is, but information is key in making an informed decision on a subject. 

Yes they are, from the specs (don't always trust them, but they are a good benchmark for what they'll be) they are excellent radiator fans that are dead silent.

Nobody mentioned http://www.techbargains.com/ ? It's probably the greatest site ever created, updated every hour and filled with all kinds of deals. Happy Shopping

So I came across this site: http://www.addie.cc , it' s a "simple service which allows users to easily share their cryptocurrency addresses through a public profile." 
 
So you can give people your addie and they can send whatever coins you have set up to your addie, which makes cryptocurrencies a bit easier to send
 
Here's an example of my addie: http://www.addie.cc/shack
   

They are nice, but still not worth it. I bought one purely for the lolz. Even with the price drop from $250 to $200 the time to payoff is still 200+ days at CURRENT difficullty. By that time the 100MH scrypt asics could be out and it will be game over for gpus on scrypt. That is why I won't be mining scrypt. Gpu mining isn't dying yet, just scrypt gpu mining.

Thanks guy!

-Cash was a niche thing, gold/silver was more reliable and had real worth
-Credit cards were niche things, only the wealthy has them
-Paypal was niche, nobody believed it would get big, but it did
-Now that a new option of payment is here, people will think its niche, only to find that they themselves will be using it in a few years
 
Just my opinion...

Don't use thermal paste for the VRMs, use thermal pads.

Middlecoin is having some bad days and the owner has been MIA for a few days.  Lots of people are switching till everything works well again.  Middlecoin has been number 1 for a while.
 
Other options:
 
wafflepool
clevermining
hashcows
wemineall (beta)
altcoinplex (alpha)

FFFFFFffflappy coin?

I would suggest getting in on flappycoin while its still at a low difficulty. I'm not trying to make flappycoin great or anything, and i perosnally think its a stupid idea, but if dogecoin has taught me anything, its that coins based on a meme and followed by many reddit peeps, allows for great profit. Its a risky one to mine in case it busts, but I dont believe it will. Plz don't comment that flappycoin is stupid and a copy of other coins, I already know that, I'm just trying to make some money here.

I actually made my gaming rig last year, so I didnt invest anything really into mining, but for the three weeks I have been mining(with one 7950), I've made about $65

For being in the US, your best bet I think, would be at https://coinbase.com/ You're able to link your bank account and directly fund purchases of Bitcoin from their "exchange" platform.
 
Coinbase only supports Bitcoin right now; However you can easily buy Bitcoins then use some of those Bitcoins to buy various other coins. Many exchanges offer Bitcoin trading pairs which don't require or offer fiat, https://www.cryptsy.com/
 
When you say large volumes, how many are you looking to purchase? Make sure the liquidity is available at the exchange you're wanting to purchase from. Purchasing more than 1000 coins at a time could be difficult on exchanges with low liquidity/volume.
 
 
To Answer your question "in general"
- Sign up, and become verified on a local, legitimate exchange.
- Wire transfer large, or small sums of money to the exchange.
- Depending on the exchange/trading platform; Place your buy orders.
- As the market moves, your buy orders may get filled if someone is willing to sell at your listed buy price.
- Move Bitcoins to a secure personal wallet where you control the keys. 
- Figure out how much you want to store away in secure offline paper wallets/cold storage. Using the most paranoid security measure you like, create wallets and store your coins offline.
- Use the other portion to send to an exchange which supports many Bitcoins trading pairs.
- Repeat the previous buy/sell order for various coins and day trading.

coinbase easiest way if you have an US bank account

I don't feel right about giving away referral codes. I'm here to help, not make money.

YES THEY DO!!! thank you for this.

I'd like it...
 
Oh and also, I tried out SGMiner. I may have configured something wrong, because I was getting ~15 khashes. I'm currently using CGMiner 3.4.3, so I have that at least...

Hey Vitalius, I'm an absolute noob when it comes to mining, but I just wanted to start to see if I can actually get anything from it. I was wondering where to start with LiteCoin, what I have to download, and what accounts I'll have to make. If you or anyone else could help me out that would be great.