I eventually braved the Birmingham experience: the Pismo and I arrived in the Bullring on the 28th December.

The vodaphone salesperson in their ‘business store’ couldn’t have been more helpful. She got me a 3G card and software CD, discussed the issues with me and then we started to install it. The instructions on the leaflet were “Insert the CD, then double-click the Mac installer in the window that appears…”.

No window, no sign of the installer anywhere on the CD after 30 minutes of manual and spotlight searching. The CD only contained PC software (which is the reason for this entry’s tag). So an end to that visit.

I then went to the AppleStore to consult with their ‘genius bar‘ about whether 3G cards had ever bene known to work in macs. The genius I spoke with said that vodaphone’s offering did work: they’d omitted the mac software from their installer CDs but it was available on their website. He’d installed it for a customer that week.

The subgebius was ignorant of all things Pismo-ish but his colleague overheard my questions and recommended I try Newertech for a replacement battery

I now have the installer on the mac but am still wondering whether the line rental and cost per megabyte make this worthwhile. If I can find a modem cable for my battered but brilliant Nokia 3310 and a modem script, I think I’ll be satisfied.