I am mining with 7.0.5 because I have not been able to sync my 9.3 client. I'm still trying to do that, if successful I'll switch to mining with the 9.3.
This node 173.48.255.21 is me. I see it on the nova list posted above so nova is seeing my node. To tell if the nova wallet is up to date try sending some coins to nova from your synced wallet and see if they show up.
If you want to mine, you need an asic scrypt miner, for example an antminer L3. To use an asic miner you have to have your own pool. I use unomp and followed this blockgen guide,
Search "blockgen mining pool" for the tutorial
If in a few days 9.3 doesn't sync I'll try your 9.4 version.
edit: my 9.3 client just crashed again with a bad allocation error and has stopped syncing.