Hey everyone,

I'm new to the forum's and new to bitcoins.  I've done a good amount of research about the system over the last few days, and finally downloaded and installed the software last night.  The program says I've got 8 connections and 120k blocks so far (I assume these are the "community blocks"). 

I was wondering if there's anything I need to do with the software to optimize my mining?  Are there any settings or anything I need to adjust?  or is it as simple as running the program and forgetting about it?  Also, where will I see the progress of the block that i'm actually downloading, or will that become clear to me once I download all the community blocks?

Thanks for the help and I hope my questions make sense, this is all new to me.