I would buy only what you can afford to lose and ideally I would buy mainly for the purposes of later using it for transactions in bitcoins in exchange for goods and services.   In my opinion the investment side of it is a disaster waiting to happen.

Suggestion:  If there is no work available for a user then the site should remove the option or gray it out or something.  It is annoying to click and be told there is no work when it appears that there is.

That's not bad at all.  I'm kicking myself now as I remember when BTC were under $1 USD.  It sure would have been nice if I picked up a coulpe hundred of them then!

Did you change the preferences for the transaction fee?

I still have some reading to do but the whole transaction fee issue seems to be a weakpoint.  While in theory miners can set the minimum they will process for and users can set what they are willing to pay, I think the developers have too much power to set up the customary defaults which many will keep.  The default for mining software ought to be based on something more sensible and should probably be on the low side.  The default on the user side ought to always be zero.  Let the user pay more only if they are willing.

That is how it seems to me as well.  Although BTC are still increasing in value fairly rapidly.  Just a few days ago when I set up my first wallet the value of a bitcoin was about $90 USD.  Now it's over $110 USD.  I doubt this rate is sustainable (and I hope it doesn't continue on actually for stability reasons) but it indicates there is still money to be made by speculators.

+1

It's really not so bad.  But one thing to keep in mind is that the forum seems to only keep track based on your last click when you are logged in.  So if you click a topic and then spend an hour reading it before clicking again it seems you get 0 (or perhaps 1) credit for minutes because the forum doesn't know that you spent an hour reading.  OTOH if you read for five minutes and then clicked you would get credit for five minutes. 

Anyway I'm able to post elsewhere but I think I will stick around here for a bit until the questions asked here are no longer interesting (indicating that it's time to move to the other forums).

Not to threadjack but on Firefox Linux with Multibit I notice that the bitcoin: links do not work for me and upon clicking I get a message stating it's an invalid protocol. 

It would be nice for it to be done in a way where it "just works".

I'm just a newbie but it's possible the IP was a tor exit node in the past and their database just hasn't been updated.

I already answered but I think you should have made a $0 option.  I'm sad to say this but there is probably about a 30% or so chance that within 2 years something will happen to make bitcoins worthless.  I hope it doesn't happen but the possibility is always there that something will happen such as the cryptography being broken or the governments all coming together to outlaw them or otherwise make them extremely unappealing to the point where they are worth under a penny.

But as I said if bitcoins stick around without something catastrophic happening I think somewhere around $200 per BTC is likely.

Same here.    I noticed on Google Trends that 'bitcoin' has about 1/50th of the name recognition as Paypal.  Let's hope the gap is narrowed as time goes on.  One thing which would help I think is making it easier for people to get started while also making them feel reasonably secure.  As it is now I think many newbies are nervous they are goign to get hacked or lose their bitcoins.

I'm surprised the legitimate ones still exist.

Say there are 10 such sites each which allow 1 freebie per 24 hour period.

Let's say an enterprising individual has a way to secure 10,000 IP addresses per day and each one pays on average 0.0001 BTC

Then:

10,000 * 10 * .0001 = 10 BTC

= $1050 USD / day (at $105 USD = 1 BTC)

It's good to see people haven't ruined it for others by now if free bitcoins are truly still being given out.

As an experiment I tried that site approximately 12 hours ago.  I've received nothing yet.  Perhaps the batches are that long or the transaction fee is zero so it take a while to confirm?

Yep.  Paypal also won't handle certain transaction, for example, adult related business.  Then there are all the stories of Paypal locking accounts.  For a seller Bitcoins would be better because the transaction cannot be reversed.

Just curious as to what thoughts there are now on this.  How long do you think it will be until Bitcoins are preferred over Paypal for online transactions?

I'm going to guess around $200.

But IMO bitcoin is better off without the investors because it needs long term sustainability.  Investors will leave once a bubble and subsequent crash occurs.  Long term users who use it to buy and sell will not leave as long as bitcoin does what they need.

In my opinion Bitcoin is better off if people stop thinking about it in terms of an investment and instead see as more of a special currency.  It probably won't end well as a bubble truly does form because when it crashes it will likely crash hard as all the people using it for investment purposes leave.  True stability will come from the people using it to buy and sell.

Consider using Multibit if you haven't heard of it yet.  When I first started a couple days ago I used bitcoin-qt and was ready to give up on the whole thing because of how slow it was and how much disk space and network activity it was using.  But multibit does great for me without the problems.

Personally I would not use bitcoins as an investment.  If you do go that route it should be more about spreading and reducing risk.  Even better for me bitcoins are more of an improved Paypal than anything else.  It's a great way to buy and sell.  Hopefully bitcoins become more popular.

I would keep multiple backup copies then on different mediums including one offsite (not at your residence) if possible.  You don't have to only keep your wallet on one flash drive.  You can encrypt the files if you want.  For instance have a look at Truecrypt.

Kind of off topic a bit but I believe you show an opening for some commerce.  There should be a site for experts in bitcoin and security to help provide advice for a nominal fee (in bitcoins, of course!).  Have ratings so that there can be a reasonable degree of trust.  This way new users with lots of money at risk could get some personal help and attention on demand.

I wish I did.  I remember when it was around $1 USD.  I also wish I started mining years ago.  Especially when I lived in a place where the landlord payed the electric bill.