what is a share and what is its relation to the amount of bitcoins that i've earned? i've finally found some hashes (using a CPUminer) and i think that i've got a share for each hash. is that right? any info will be greatly appreciated. have a kickin' day.
The miner's task is to find a special combination of numbers, hash of which will be lower than specified value.
This happens rarely, so miners are submitting not only the winning one but others that are low, but not low enough, so pool can see that you are really trying and not just waiting. Each one of those results is a proof-of-work and we call it a share.
One of those will be low enough to create a new block.
Sorry, not sure if I described it correctly in english :)