litecoin- please elaborate
Litecoin is commonly referred to as the "silver" to Bitcoin's "gold". Bitcoin is currently trading at about $800/coin right now. Litecoin is trading at about $22/coin.
There are dozens of coins besides bitcoin...sometimes called "alt-coins". IMHO most are traded on wishful thinking that they will experience a similar rise to bitcoin. Heck, litecoin may be one of those as well...only time will tell.
What I like about Litecoin is that it just sort of sits there right below Bitcoin. It's value of $22 is solid enough to give it a chance for survival, but low enough to not attract the huge datacenter mining activity that is being drawn to bitcoin.
So that makes litecoin something that the "common man" can mine requiring a very minimal investment. If you're a hard-core gamer, you may already have the equipment you need to get started.
There are tons of links out there that can describe better than I can. Some that I found useful:
Graphic card hardware comparison the higher the kH/s the more coins you can mine.
BTC-E Exchange one of the many places you can buy and sell litecoins (LTC) and others.
Coinotron one of many "mining pools" you can join to earn litecoins.
Homemade Rig Example Instructions for building a rig. However, I don't really like how he jams the thing into a milk crate. However, I looked at the page for examples of different hardware that can me used.
Litecoin 101 Forbes article.
bfgminer example of software you can use for mining. Lots of switches and settings to figure out, but once you get the right script in there, it basically runs on its own.