See here.

Honestly, I don't know. I haven't seen anyone else reporting errors, so it's probably just me. See for yourself.

If you don't want to wait for the entire blockchain to sync, you can use a client like Electrum which takes far less time and less space on your hard drive.

Deepbit is quite a good pool - only has 4% of the total hashrate. Their website can be quite slow, and CGMiner throws errors at me when I try to use it.

You'll need at the most 9 posts here, if you look at the Ripple giveaway.

You have a fair few options - Bitbargain, Local Bitcoins, Bbitcoin Fridge and Speedy Bitcoin. All of these have quite high fees. You can also try Bitstamp, but you'll get hit with high SEPA fees from your bank, unless you use a money transfer service like Tranzfers. Have a look at the BitcoinUK subreddit.

Bitstamp.net is a very good exchange for people in the Eurozone - 0.5% trading fees, 0% fee on SEPA deposits and a 0.9 euro fee on SEPA withdrawals.