so i just downloaded a primecoin wallet, its taking a long time to sync with the network (says its 22 weeks behind) but when it comes up, any suggestions for a mining process i should start with??
also thanks to who ever put that little bit into my bitcoin account, made my day.

I have mined with PrimeCoin (XPM) quite a bit. It is pretty much impossible to solo mine now, so you'll need to join a pool.
My favorite pool is
http://www.ypool.net After signing up and logging in, visit the "How to" section to learn everything you need.
Don't expect much from your laptop. I am still running one pretty high-end server on PrimeCoin (24 cores) and I'm only getting *maybe* 1 XPM per day.