Ok, let's keep it simple, I want to take my PC round to my mates house tomorrow and share his broadband connection. He's got a USB cable modem. I have no network card. What's the cheapest and easiest way to do this ?

Cheers, Greg.

Without buying extra kit , you can't.

buy two cheapo network cards for about a fiver each then spend ages setting up so that the first computer is a gateway to the internet for the second computer. never done it mind but think its possible

Yep , 2 network cards and a crossover cable is cheapest , then run the Internet Connection Sharing wizard.

I've got a crossover cable, can get my mitts on a cheap network card fairly easily (I think my mate has a spare). It's the software set up I'm worried about. We're both on XP SP2 so should be pretty easy ???

Yep , absolute doddle on XP.

Just run the network setup wizard on both machines and click the obvious boxes.