3 easy steps to start Bitcoin mining today

With Bitcoin prices soaring to a high of US$ 41,973/BTC in early January of this year, many people are giving a second look at how they can get into this modern-day goldmine.

Understanding cryptocurrency, blockchain, hashrate, mining pools, and all the other crypto mumbo-jumbo, however, is a big obstacle for those of us who aren’t tech wizards. Like me, most people are curious about mining for Bitcoin but don’t necessarily fathom how ‘mining’ on the internet happens.

Fortunately, you don’t need to understand all of it to start earning some Bitcoin. The best and most practical way of knowing whether Bitcoin mining is for you is, incredibly, by just doing it.

I was encouraged when I watched an 11-minute video by Tech Inspected where he explained in very clear terms how to get started with mining. Here, I will show you what I learned, along with answers to the questions I had when I began to try out Bitcoin mining.

If you’re wondering about hardware, the general understanding is that anyone who has a PC with a relatively powerful graphics card — at least Nvidia GE Force 10 series or AMD counterpart — can mine.

In the spirit of ‘learn-by-doing’, here’s a simple, three-step process anyone can do to start mining:

Create a Nicehash account

I’ve found Nicehash to be the simplest, easiest-to-use miner out there, and it’s perfect for beginners. No need to figure out scripts and pool addresses and other seemingly arcane complications that other miners require. Nicehash even automatically creates a Bitcoin wallet for you where it will deposit your earnings. No-fuss, no worries, all done without any effort on your part – which is the beauty of crypto mining in the first place.

You just download the miner, input the Bitcoin wallet address provided by Nicehash, press ‘play’, and it’s good to go. You can mess with the settings later once you’re more familiar with the program. For now, just press ‘play’ and let your graphics card work.

Now, don’t expect to mine a lot of Bitcoin right away – you’re likely just mining with one graphics card and you’ve just started. Give it some time – a day or two if you have the new RTX30 cards, maybe a week if you have the older cards. You can check the profitability of your rig through the Nicehash miner.

You can even find out your projected weekly, monthly, and annual earnings on your Nicehash account.

If you’ve done Number 1, then technically, you’re a miner already (maybe I should’ve titled this article ‘1 Easy Step To Start Mining’?). Congratulations, now you have some Bitcoin.

But naturally, you have pertinent questions like “HOW DO I TURN THESE SHINY BITCOINS TO PHILIPPINE PESO?” After all, your local 7-11 doesn’t accept Bitcoin as a valid form of payment yet, right?

Create a Coins.ph account

Coins.ph will let you convert Bitcoin into Philippine Pesos. To do this, you have to move your Bitcoins from your Nicehash wallet and transfer it to your Coins.ph account.

First, make an account at Coins.ph and get your Bitcoin wallet (not the Peso wallet) address from there. Click the BTC line under ‘All Wallets’, then click the QR code to copy the wallet address.

Then, go to your Nicehash account, go to the ‘Wallets’ tab, and click ‘Withdraw’.

Paste your Coins.ph Bitcoin wallet address on the Withdraw field, input the amount of Bitcoins you want to transfer, and finalize it. The minimum withdraw amount is 0.001BTC (around PhP 1500).

Convert your Bitcoin to Peso

Now that you’ve moved your Bitcoins from Nicehash into your Coins.ph account, it’s time to turn them into actual pesos that you can spend in your favorite carinderia.

In your Coins.ph account, go again to your BTC wallet, then press ‘Convert’. This will enable you to exchange your Bitcoins to Pesos. It’s a similar process to when you go to a money changer to trade currencies.

Once you’re done with the conversion, you can now get your pesos through various means.

You can ‘Cash Out’ your money and transfer it to various banks (BPI, BDO, Security Bank, etc.), e-wallets (GrabPay, GCash, etc.), remittance centers, and other options.

That’s it!

You’ve successfully mined and moved Bitcoins, and then converted them into pesos.

For casual miners, cryptocurrency mining is probably not enough to fully supplant the salary that a regular job pays, but as a completely passive source of income? Forgive the pun, but mining rocks!

If you have more questions – from specifics like “Isn’t it better to mine Etherium instead of Bitcoin nowadays?” or “how fast should my internet speed be for mining?”, or more nebulous inquiries such as “Should I invest in buying more cards for mining?” or even pragmatic concerns akin to whether or not mining actually harms your precious graphics cards, let us know!

 

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon: Stylish simplicity, all-day dependability

09/02/2023

In the last few years, the pandemic caused most of us to stay indoors, in the safety of our own homes. Now that the world is a little safer than it was two or three years ago, there’s more reason to head out.

While things have changed – work habits, ways of life, technology, and even us as human beings, it’s nice that I’ve found myself more confident in working outside and taking in inspiration from the outside world.

Because of this, the need for a lightweight laptop surfaced.

Now, if I were to pick up an ultraportable for myself there are three things that I think I would look out for – its looks, all-around performance, and long battery life.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon seems to provide all that.

A looker, undoubtedly

There’s no denying it’s one attractive laptop, especially in this gorgeous white color (though that may just be my penchant for white-colored devices).

Minimalist yet still striking, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon doesn’t need to beg for attention.

The clean and elegant design is something that seemingly never fails to draw other eyes whenever I bring it outside to work. I’ve also become a fan of these rounded corners not just because they add elegance but also because they don’t snag on things. It also makes for a better fit inside my bag.

And it’s just so light.

Weighing just under 1kg and just 14.8mm thin, it’s effortless to bring around so much that I would have it in my bag all the time – even when I didn’t need it.

The coating is fingerprint resistant so you can keep it looking clean and pristine, making it quite easy to maintain. In terms of durability, this Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon withstood a series of military-grade tests alongside the company’s in-house reliability tests.

With that, this laptop should be able to endure, well, quite a lot, so you won’t have to worry about it when you bring it around on your adventures.

Open it up to find an edge-to-edge keyboard which is probably another thing I love about this laptop. It’s comfortable and well-designed. The key spaces are quite generous and do not at all feel cramped which makes for easy typing and operation – even for a laptop this small.

We also have an adequately sized and responsive trackpad that supports gestures for quick actions and easier navigation.

And despite being a tiny laptop, the 13.3-inch display didn’t really leave me wanting more when working on my everyday tasks. Bezels are tiny at just 2.56mm all around save for the chin and this helps maximize the space available.

Its only weakness, in my opinion, is that its brightness comes up just a bit short. Since I work indoors most of the time, it wasn’t much of a bother but there were a couple of times that I found myself wanting a little more from this display.

If that’s something you can look past, there isn’t much fault to it considering it also has the usual favorites including QHD+ resolution, 100% sRGB color, 90Hz adaptive refresh rate, and TUV Rheinland low blue light EyeSafe certification.

Dependable daily performance and then some

For an ultraportable, you expect to get a certain kind of versatility when it comes to what it can do and its overall performance. While it may not be the most powerful around, it should be a device that can handle the usual dailies and maybe a little bit more.

In using the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon as my daily driver, I’ve come to find it as a very reliable machine to take on everyday tasks.

Intel Evo-certified, powering the laptop is a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor partnered with Intel Iris Xe graphics. It comes with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB SSD storage.

It really is that perfect little laptop to tote around for answering emails, managing our social media, taking on the daily video calls or chats, and even some light photo and video editing. And with that touch display, navigation was a breeze and more intuitive making my workflow faster, and my to-do list, shorter.

Even through hours of use, I didn’t feel the laptop significantly slow down. This, of course, is in handling light to medium tasks like the ones I just mentioned.

I was also able to edit photos quite effortlessly, too, and could count on that color-accurate display to help me out.

But editing 4K videos took a bit of a toll in the long run. If you’re doing simple and quick video edits, you might not run into this problem. But in editing a 4K video over 10 minutes, and with graphics too, the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon started having a harder time. Not that it didn’t do the job, it just started to slow down.

It did show better performance, however, when I kept the laptop plugged in and turned to performance mode while working on heavier tasks.

But in all honesty, it may not be fair to expect an ultraportable to take on heavy multimedia work. But for everything else, it offers pretty solid, stable, and consistent performance.

Connectivity is also a necessity these days and Lenovo knows that and boosts it by offering Wi-Fi 6E on this device.

I’m just a little bit disappointed with the port selection though I suppose it was a compromise to achieve this lightweight of a laptop.

We only have two USB-C ports here and one is used to charge the device. Because of that, having a dongle became a necessity for connecting other devices or peripherals. Luckily, we have Thunderbolt 4 here so we’re at least getting high transfer speeds.

And like most people who own a laptop, I also use it during my downtime to catch up on some shows or films. The size is just enough for my ‘Me Time’. With lights down low, the display is beautiful and, being matte, makes it easy on the eyes as well.

Paired with Dolby Atmos-certified speakers tuned by Harman Kardon, needless to say, spending a few hours binge-watching wasn’t a hard thing to do.

Apart from everything I just mentioned, I also ended up appreciating certain features that improved my overall workflow.

For example, Smart Login and Zero Touch login worked seamlessly and added peace of mind that the laptop would lock as soon as I stepped away from it. And, just as seamlessly, log back in when the camera detects my presence.

Overall, while I do have complaints, I feel they aren’t enough to negate the positive things about this laptop definitely, and is a small price to pay for everything else you’re getting.

With you ’til the end

A good ultraportable should be matched with good battery life, in my opinion. It only makes sense that a laptop that’s designed to be brought around would have enough juice to last a good part of the working day – and this one did.

I’m glad to report that the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon was able to keep up with my day lasting about 10-13 hours of intermittent use. Continuously using it for an hour, less than 20% of the battery is consumed which isn’t bad either and I assume you should be able to get about 8-10 hours if working without breaks.

No portability is lost with its charger either since it does come with a pretty small one. And if you do forget it, you can luckily use a phone charger as well. This happened to me on a trip and I ended up using my phone’s 67W charger to power the laptop.

The ease of Lenovo’s after-care service

Owning a laptop isn’t just about having it and that’s why I also put importance on the after-care services available. Thankfully, Lenovo has got this covered with the 3-Year Lenovo Premium Care that comes with the device.

From setting up to troubleshooting, Premium Care will grant you access to expert technicians who can help you with whatever problems you may have. And there are many ways to contact them – phone, email, 24/7 chat, and even through WhatsApp.

If it can’t be solved remotely, you can also request on-site support and have a check-up right from the comfort of your own home. With Premium Care, you also get annual PC Health Checks so you can keep your device in tip-top shape through the years.

Additionally, there’s also a 3-Year Accidental Damage Protection to give you ease of mind. Whether it be spills, bumps, or hardware issues, you can again request assistance and have Lenovo’s trained technicians help you out.

And if it’s unrepairable? The whole system can be replaced with no additional charges.

Final thoughts

With lots of pros and some cons, I stopped to think about who this laptop was designed for.

Well, after spending some time with it, I found that it’s for the user who not only appreciates the lightweight form factor but someone who values style and long battery life as well. Heavy multimedia work isn’t its strong suit, obviously, but it excels at all the usual tasks someone who is always out and about may encounter.

And I can’t not again bring up how eye-catching it is despite its minimalist design. It’s definitely a laptop that will have people asking you about it. But thankfully, it goes beyond just looks and offers pretty good performance as well.

Price and availability

The slim and durable Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon is now available locally starting at PhP 89,995.00 and can be purchased through Lenovo’s official site and physical stores. Lenovo Accidental Damage Protection is also available as an add-on with various options available when purchasing through the official website.

This post is in partnership with Lenovo Philippines.

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