It turns out the jailbreaking is easy enough and here's a couple of tips I found to cut through the potential confusion.
First, there are several different JB methods and patches. To know what is appropriate for your device, the easiest is just go to this website
http://intelliborn.com/download.html, find your device and iOS you run on it, and click on the link for the appropriate download.
The only tricky thing I found is putting the iPhone into ?DFU? mode to install the Jailbreak. This video show the timing and sequence needed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bITIiGswjFI Watch it once or twice to know what to do, then use it for the timing of the two steps.
Once it?s Jailbroken, you will find the Cydia icon added, otherwise it appears normal. Click on the Cydia icon to purchase and install the JB apps like MyWi. It?s not as slick as the regular app store, and I appreciate more how much work Steve Jobs put into making the regular iPhone so easy to use.
On the other hand a bit of research and work, and $20 for MyWi, saves me hundreds every year on tethering or paying for additional data plan for an iPad 3G. Since I have the 2GB/$25/month plan, it was really galling to learn that if a bought an iPad 3G model, I'd have to buy
another data plan to use the 3G! Every so often the little guy can win against the corporation.