3's a bit of a silly name for a phone network

Because it's quite hard to Google. Lots of pages contain the digit "3" - especially ones about 3G phone networks.

I've moved into my new flat, but the broadband won't be working until the modem arrives next week (sluggish - but apparently it's a busy time for the Royal Mail). It's £50 for a 3GB pay as you go dongle in Maplin - so I bought one, after asking whether it would work with Windows XP (I've a virtual XP box). 

Youth in shop: "Says so on the box, innit." Well, that's certainly put my mind at rest. Lesson: don't ask anyone in a shop about computers, unless they have a beard. Or are at least old enough to have a beard. But I bought one anyway (a dongle, not a beard), and have spent around 10 hours trying to get it to work.

So just in case this will help any other frustrated Linux users, here's the useful stuff of how to get one of these working (on Xubuntu 10.04):

1. Spend 5-6 hours trying to get it to work on an XP virtualbox. Make sure you've plenty of swearwords handy - if not, go straight to step 2. 
2. Install some useful stuff from here - those nice people at Betavine have lots of things to make broadband dongles work on Linux. I got ozerocdoff, usb_modeswitch and vodafone-mobile-connect. I don't know which of these are necessary/sufficient.
3. Plug in your dongle. If you forget this, it's extremely unlikely that it will work.
4. With these installed, you should be able to right click on the network icon in the toolbar, go to the "Mobile Broadband" tab and Add, and then your dongle should appear in the dropdown list. 
5. HERE'S THE DIFFICULT BIT: Through a process of trial and error, inspired guessing and ouija board work, you have to fill in the options. Or copy them from here, where a lovely man/lady has done the hard work for you and posted the results. Here's what my options look like:
   
   
6. Right click on the network icon, enable mobile broadband, and Bob may well be your uncle, or at least your Auntie's favourite lodger - internet on the move. I got a staggering 1.4 Mbps, which is OK for general surfing. 
7. Marvel at how 3 (or Three, or III or whatever they're called) could provide this information quite easily, but don't.