The unusual lack of a top level directory in this archive is rather inconvenient.
But many thanks for this new release :-)

FYI

I'm having issues connecting my "internal" client (on one computer) with the one I run on another computer that's port mapped and listed on the IRC channels. The internal client does not go on IRC, isn't port mapped and the config file adds the other client on the local network using addnode. This worked well with at least 0.3.21, never really tried 0.3.22. With 0.3.23 it seems the connection gets dropped easily, and once it's been dropped it doesn't seem to come back up. Even when it's initally up (1 connection) there are very few blocks being received, and very slowly, though.

From the internal client log, although it doesn't seem to be detailed enough:

ThreadOpenConnections started
trying connection 192.168.0.123:8333 lastseen=-335573.5hrs lasttry=-363351.2hrs
ThreadMessageHandler started
connected 192.168.0.123:8333
sending: version (85 bytes)
...
ProcessBlock: ACCEPTED
socket closed
disconnecting node 192.168.0.123:8333


(Both computers are Macs)

Is there a way to prioritize clients on the same local network? I'd like for my "external" client to feed blocks to the "internal" one as quickly as possible.

This.

Fortunately there are only 6 or 7 files/directories inside, not too horrible unless you had a src or bin directory where you were when you extracted it
Also, thanks for the release

Just open the exe with your favorite archiver

Tried with Winrar and it doesn't work

Do I get to say "I told you so" when all the NOOBs flood the forum complaining they forgot their wallet passphrase? (Or conversely, chose a weak password and had their funds stolen anyway.)

I suspect wallets will be a little more permanent than private keys used for authentication.

Thanks for the update, devs  You guys rock

Happy the mandatory fee was lowered, disappointed it is still undisableable without recompiling the sourcecode.  (Just tried sending myself .00001BTC as a test, and it refused to send it without a .0005BTC fee).

Any fixed-size hardcoded minimum transaction fee in the original client is an example of centralized authority controlling bitcoin:  by hardcoding 0.0005 as the minimum, Bitcoin.org is signaling that they do not expect 0.0005BTC to become particularly burdensome in the foreseeable future.  Granted, such an assumption is quite probably true, but I still feel it ought to be the market who decides such things, not Bitcoin.org.  In particular, bitcoin granularity is effectively capped now at .0001BTC (for original client users).  For example, many people have talked about Satoshi (units equal to 0.00000001BTC), but if an original client user wants to actually spend a Satoshi, they will be charged a 5,000,000% fee.  So it is tantamount to false advertising to casually discuss these units as if they are already usable.

Proposed Guiding Principle: To the extent it is possible without unduly inconveniencing the developers, the main client should be designed in such a way that if all further client development were halted due to unforeseen catastrophe, freezing the client at the current version, this version should scale arbitrarily.

The present client does not scale.  Assuming 21million BTC, a .0005BTC transaction fee is 2.38*10^-9 percent of the ENTIRE bitcoin economy [1].  This might intuitively seem tiny, but bear in mind that 2.38*10^-9 percent of the current USD economy is [2] around $20 (assuming 829billion USD in circulation [3]).

[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+percent+of+21000000+is+.0005
[2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2.38*10^{-9}+%25+of+829000000000
[3] http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed01.html

I'm also happy that the mandatory fee was lowered. But I still don't see, why there has to be a mandatory fee at all.
Sure miners need to have an incentive but there are miners out there who support free transactions.

Shouldn't the client give you the option to send money with fee (priority) and without fee (low priority)?
Currently the client simply gives you an error message that you can only send your transaction if you accept the minimum fee of 0.0005 BTC

This is a huge setback for using BTC as micropayments.

You do realize though that a lot of advertisement has been made stating that bitcoin is THE micropayment solution.

Especially for digital content (YouTube, etc).
Assume one bitcoin will once be worth a thousand dollars or more. Who would then pay for digital content, if the minimum amount was let's say 0.01 BTC.

See my point?

If a solution cannot be found in the regard, maybe people should not promote bitcoin as a micropayment solution...

It is not. There is a network-wide cost of processing each transaction. Currently each client has a copy of the whole blockchain. Each client verifies (twice) every single transaction. Soon, you will need a fat server to even use bitcoins because there is no other way. Reducing the fee before the constraints are solved is premature. I for one would rather see slower Bitcoin adoption than Bitcoin bloat.