@shonnyconstant
I'm not entirely a Bitcoin Newb, but consider me as such for this question. I'm looking to buy a USB miner, fully aware that it will do nearly nothing in terms of providing me value or profit. I suppose you could consider me a 1st generation "outside" adopter, in that I'm converting standard currency in modest amounts to cryptocurrency as a show of faith in the philosophical and cultural potential of the movement. My desire is simply to apply the miner in order to see how the process works, regardless of how little I'll benefit from that process. So my questions are, does it matter which USB miner I get at this point? I suspect the range of power is negligible at this point. And once I get it and set it up, how do I find a network to connect to in terms of pooling resources? Any help is appreciated.
You might consider getting a little Jalapeno bitcoin miner. These are from the notoriously hated Buterfly Labs, but I just looked and you can get a used one on ebay for $10 currently! You will get 7.5GH/s and you wont have to keep your computer on 24/7 eating up all the electricity. However you will get to go through the process of setting up cgminer program and tinkering with that, along with joining a mining pool. Something to think about anyway
