user3569: I'm totally new to this, but love this idea!
I want to help, (and generate coin), and have only installed Bitcoin-Qt version 0.8.1
It ran, synchronized; I encrypted my wallet.
But now what?  Will it use my 2 NVIDIA gtx580 GPU's on its own? Do I need to do anything else, other than just let it run?  
Got the green checkmark; up to date
I have 8 active connections and my wallet is both locked(?) and encrypted.

user3572: I just did this today...
I found a mining pool (I picked Eligius) from here https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools
The pools website had further instructions. In my case, I installed a mining client "bfgminer" and followed the instructions to add my ID. It sounds like for a windows OS, GUIMiner might be a good start too.
gui miner thread https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=3878.0
The key thing to realize is that there is a difference being a BitCoin "client", which is what you setup above, and a BitCoin "miner" which requires the steps I in this response.

3569: <p>I'm totally new to this, but love this idea!</p>

<p>I want to help, (and generate coin), and have only installed Bitcoin-Qt version 0.8.1</p>

<p>It ran, synchronized; I encrypted my wallet.</p>

<p>But now what?  Will it use my 2 NVIDIA gtx580 GPU's on its own? Do I need to do anything else, other than just let it run?  </p>

<p>Got the green checkmark; up to date<br>
I have 8 active connections and my wallet is both locked(?) and encrypted.</p>
 3572: <p>I just did this today...</p>

<p>I found a mining pool (I picked Eligius) from here <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools" rel="nofollow">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools</a></p>

<p>The pools website had further instructions. In my case, I installed a mining client "bfgminer" and followed the instructions to add my ID. It sounds like for a windows OS, GUIMiner might be a good start too.</p>

<p>gui miner thread <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=3878.0" rel="nofollow">https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=3878.0</a></p>

<p>The key thing to realize is that there is a difference being a BitCoin "client", which is what you setup above, and a BitCoin "miner" which requires the steps I in this response.</p>
