Android Phone as a Wireless Hot-Spot

I have finally got around to having a proper play with my new(ish) Android Phone.
In doing so, I’ve discovered that :

• it can read music files in ogg format ( good old Linux)
• yes, Angry Birds IS addictive
• it works very nicely as a Wireless Hot-Spot.

A quick tour through the toys I’m using for this particular exercise.
The Emachines E350 netbook running good old Ubuntu 10.04.2 is the computer. Yes, this should work on Windows as well, if your that way inclined.
The phone in question is an HTC Desire S running Android 2.3.3

Enabling the wireless Hot-spot on the Phone

The steps to do this are fairly simple.
First, go to Settings and select Wireless & networks.
Now select Portable Wi-Fi hotspot
If you need to check the Name of the hot-spot that the phone will be displayed as or the password required to connect, go to Portable Wi-Fi hotspot settings.
It’s probably a good idea to change it from the default ( 1234567890 on my phone).
Router Name (SSID) on the phone is set to HTC Portable Hotspot by default. Once again, you might think about changing this, if only to avoid confusion !

Connecting from the PC

Check your list of wireless Networks ( click the wireless icon on the top bar in Ubuntu)
Select the phone from the drop down list, enter the password when prompted…and your good to go.

Whilst you will be connected to the phone itself at the usual 54Mbps, the internet connection itself isn’t what you’d call fast (I assume it’s connecting via 3G) so you will need to be a bit patient. Think of it as a nostalgic return to the days when a 56.6 Kbps modem was the ultimate on-ramp to the “Information Superhighway”.
Right, back to Angry Birds. Now, what do these yellow ones do again ?