I'm still kinda new. Only been into bitcoin for a few months now. I'm still excited.  But it is what it is.

Hey guys, thanks so much for the help. I'm not there yet, but now one step closer in the right direction. I created the .bat file, but then i couldn't get CGminer to start from it (open the .txt file with CGminer?) Then, i used that code to try the shortcut method again, and it worked this time!  CGminer opened and responded, but it still isn't hashing. It seems to be caught in a loop where it: sends votage, ok, send golden nonce, bmsc golden nonce timeout...other stuff spaming... then
Bitmain detect <5:3>  failed to initialize.

So still nothing. So far i've only tried it with Slush's Pool and a few other here mentioned having issues on Slush with this as well; might that be it?  I'm done for tonight, but i'll be back at this tomorrow!  Thanks for the help so far.

I just got mine ordered off eBay too and i'm having difficulties.  I was able to get and correctly install the right drivers, but still haven't gotten it to work. I see the command line going around has helped a lot of people...  I hate to ask a total n00b question here, but how and where do I go about entering that command information in CGminer?  I'm not too families with theses things yet, but I've been learning a ton lately and have been controlling my other usb miner with BFGminer on Slush.  Any help greatly appreciated here.

I love my Samsung Galaxy! 

This is cool and will be a good thing for all involved in the community. I'm looking forward to participating and buying something with my BTC on the 28th. I'll sign up and browse the website until then.

The military won't see much change from now unless something else crazy happens overseas.  What will probably really happen is major changes and challenges to the Healthcare (Obamacare) industry and the future of social security. 

lol, nice responses everyone. Thanks for the welcome. I'll look into insurance, and I am interested in cloud mining, so i'll look into that as well. Again, i know i won't be able to compete with mining farms out there, but wouldn't 5 or so nice new ASICs create a bitcoin income stream for me? Regardless of the value? 

In other news, the computer i'm planning on building over the next couple months i'm thinking of using TWO of the new Nvidia Titan Z GPUs, which is like 4 980's. I figured that plus a few ASIC's would generate a few mBTC's...

Thanks for the reply's. I understand that. I think i have a decent understand of where bitcoin is right now. I have bought some BTC and am going to be holding it, and I know that will be exponentially more than i'll ever be able to mine. At this point i guess it's a technical challenge and I want to see what different types of hardware can do.  Plus, this is a really cool way for me to educate myself more about hardware and software.  Would welcome any more general advice about BTC etc...

Hey all, I guess this is sort of an introduction thread. Over the past month or so i've really caught the bug for bitcoins; i'm kinda late to the party, but here I am.  I think bitcoins are really cool and will have some future. I've been doing a lot of reading and research and looking over hardware and software stuff lately.  I've got a couple different wallets and have already invested some money into buying bitcoin.  I'm not looking to get-rich quick with bitcoin or whatever, but rather i'm really interested in learning more about the whole process, system, and bitcoin community. I've done a little bit of mining with my computer's CPU and that was very cool to get to work. I understand that any mining I do or even might do may never be significant, but i'm still onboard with this thing and want to jump in and give it a go.  My current hardware is old and really not up to the task, but i downloaded the blockchain and some other mining and wallet programs anyway so that I can start to learn this stuff and get into it.  I just bought one of the small Antminer U2's USB miner thingy and should be reviving that to play with tomorrow.  What's driving some of this is that in 2-3 months i'm going to be buying a fantastic top of the line gaming pc rig that i'm currently selecting hardware components for and I want to use that idle, while not playing games, to mine for me. I may also consider buying a few dedicated bitcoin miners.  I'll ask specific hardware questions later.  For now, i have been having issues with getting some of the mining programs to work at all.  I had been using GUIminer and mining in Slush's pool for a week or so just fine. Minuscule performance and return on my mining, but i expect that and don't care because i'm just trying to learn.  But now GUIminer won't open at all. I've also downloaded and tried Bitminter and BFGminer, but haven't had success implementing those programs at all. What weird's me out is GUIminer worked perfectly and now doesn't and nothing's changed that i can think of.    So that's where I am now. If someone wants to help me based on that, that would be great. Otherwise, later on I may open a single topic thread with more direct and pointed questions.
Until then, i'll still be here tinkering in the backgrounds...