Thanks allot, am defiantly getting you a beer 

So I was still detecting my old wallet because I had not deleted my wallet.dat file in the hidden .protoshares folder, right?
I shall now make some more backups of my wallet.dat file found here just to be safe.
I shall then cut and paste my whole .protoshares folder with its wallet.dat file onto a flash drive so that I can just plug the flash drive in when I want to make a transaction.
Then I can download the client again and I should have a new wallet.

Yep - that's more or less it. That wallet.dat file is your wallet. The application you launch and use is just a client for communicating with the Protoshares network, but that wallet.dat file is what identifies your client as corresponding to your wallet. If you delete this file, then the client will generate a new wallet ID. You were seeing your old wallet (most probably) because that wallet.dat file still existed - despite you deleting the client application. Because that wallet.dat persisted through the uninstall/reinstall of the client, your old wallet ID was still being used.

The way the Protoshare cryptocoin works is your client (again, the application you launch) will use your wallet ID as an identifier. When you open the client application, this client/wallet combo will query the network for any and all transactions involving your wallet ID (this is why you need to download the new blockchains every time you fire up the client before it displays the most recent transactions). It will display any transactions it sees in the blockchains with your wallet ID into the client. This is why you can easily port your wallet to another machine or back it up/restore it and the amount of funds in your wallet will remain the same - as the wallet/client combo relies on the network to essentially 'show' it any transactions and your client will calculate your current funds based on those transactions. This is also why if you loose your wallet ID, you cannot recover from it - because your ID is lost, those transactions cannot be modified or re-routed - simply due to the nature of how the network operates. Although the transactions exist, you have lost the wallet ID to interact with them. So they are adrift in cyberspace, so to speak

I hope that gives you a brief background - BitCoin operates a very similar system. Read up on it here if you're interested: http://bitcoin.org/en/how-it-works

Thank you muchly - appreciated.

I get ~90c/min on the 8-core, north Europe VMs. I have two running any can run them for 5 days on the $200 free credit trial.

Quote from: jedixjarf on November 26, 2013, 08:59:39 pm

My Nix 8 core azure instances do 100 c/m right now on beeeeeeeeeeeeeers but I am testing some 1 core nix vm's and they are doing about 15 c/m right now each. 15*20 = 300 c/m as opposed to the ~250 c/m I get from 2x8 core and 1x 4core Just fyi.

True, but you have to spend more time setting up. Plus your 2x8 core and 1x4 core won't last your whole trial because of the $200 limit, so if your trial is cut half as short from increased costs from 20x 1 core then its not worth it.

lol I think if it's free it's always "worth it" imho

Hi Africa,

Welcome to the Protoshare mining world.

There are some comparisons here on how various CPU models perform: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=564.0

The user above is right - you will need to mine at a pool for some considerable time (personally I give pools 48hrs to prove their worth) and decide then if the speed is right for you. Some pools are faster than others, some payout differently etc etc. If you are going at <100c/min then I'd really recommend getting stuck into a pool as mining solo is going to be a very, very long process for you otherwise.

In my opinion, cloud mining is very hit and miss and you shouldn't pay for it at all if you can't get a trial on the hardware beforehand. That is, if you can't get a free 24hr trial period or use an account on the hardware before handing your money, then you aren't going to know if the hardware performs or not. I've spent $20 on a months subscription to a 4-core machine only to find it performs worse than my 2-core Pentium processor in my desktop.. Naturally that isn't profitable in the least and if you can't make back what you are spending on the VPS, then it's really a very silly idea.. I can personally recommend Windows Azure for it's cloud mining capability - I've had great results from their $200 free no-risk trial (http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/) and you can quite comfortably make a few PTS with it without paying a single penny. Again, I've had mixed results with other VPS providers - avoid Cloud at Cost - DigitalOcean are quite good but again, it depends on the node you land on and the other users on that node. The 'hardware' you are using is visualized so you are always going to see performance decreases when compared to their baremetal counterparts. Cloud mining is difficult to make profitable in almost every cryptocurrency out there - Protoshares are no different - and sadly there is no defacto, 'go-to' VPS provider which will guarantee a profit. I'm not saying it's impossible but it is difficult.

As far as how much PTS you will get per month and any calculators out there, I think I've already explained that it's hard to predict short of taking the plunge at doing it. I think you'll net around 1PTS every 12-14 days going at 50-60c/min judging by my own experiences but that isn't taking into account other factors like rejected shares, stale blocks etc etc etc.

Good luck, have fun.

Ok thanks for this.
What I have been doing is creating backup .dat files and saving those.
To my understanding the .dat file should be all you need to restore your wallet and all your funds, correct?

How can I make my .protoshares folder visible so that I may copy it.

The wallet.dat file is all you need to restore your wallet yes but your funds are not stored on the wallet - they are stored against your wallet address/ID. Whatever computer you import your wallet into, it will pickup your funds from the network.

To make the .protoshares folder visible, follow the instructions here: http://www.mikesel.info/show-hidden-files-mac-os-x-10-7-lion/

To add to the list:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 - 70c/m on average after ~24 hours of use.
- Intel Pentium G860 - 50c/m on average after ~24 hours of use
- Intel Core 2 U9400 - 25c/m on average after ~24 hours of use

i have a strange problem with my protoshare wallet.
i have downloaded the client (using a mac), deposited my coins, encrypted the wallet and made some backups on flash drives and cds.

i then deleted all protoshare related content from my laptop.

i then wanted to start a new protoshare wallet to add some protoshares to that.
i downloaded the client from invicus website, but when i ran the client it was my old wallet that showed up.

how do i remove all client information from my laptop (i do not want to leave sensitive info on the laptop). and how do i create a new protoshare wallet?

thanks

You should have created a new thread.

Open Terminal and type the following:

cd ~
rm -rf .protoshares

This will delete your wallet and all funds in it.

Open the Protoshares client again and it will create a new wallet.

The .protoshares folder is a 'hidden' folder (Finder in OSX doesn't show it by default) that holds your wallet.dat file. This wallet.dat file is your wallet. If you want to have your wallet on multiple machines, this is the file to copy. If you want to back it up, this is the file to copy. If you want to delete it then this is the file to delete.

CPU is undoubtedly better for mining any type of cryptocurrency than high amounts of memory.

However, with Protoshares at least, it is best practice to choose an amount of memory that is a multiplication of how many cores you have, due to how the miners we use work. For example, if you have two cores you should have a minimum of 1.5GB of memory due to the least recommended memory amount per core being 512mb (512mb for each core) with 512mb free for the operating system. If you have 4 cores, 2.5GB ((4x512mb) + 512mb for OS), 8 cores 4.5GB and so on.