Like clowns piling out of the other kind of Mini, you’ll be similarly surprised at how much Apple has managed to squeeze into the Mac mini.

In this line of work, there's really nothing quite like the all-too-occasional experience of opening a box from Apple, and unveiling the shiny wonders squirreled away inside. In fact, it's the only event that never fails to draw all and sundry AJB staff from throughout the office into the Labs to catch a glimpse of what the tech company with only 3 percent market share worldwide has managed to innovate this time.

GarageBand very much fits the mould of a very simplified and intuitive approach to something that is traditionally quite complex - it's to music editing what iMovie is to video editing. The interface for GarageBand is very straight forward, and most functions are ready to hand. Setup is also very simple, with little need to worry about things like MIDI in/out/through or ASIO drivers and such.

The Kodak EasyShare LS743 is one of the new generation of mid-range digital cameras hitting the market. At its core is a 4 megapixel CCD, capable of 2,304 x 1,728 resolution, which sits behind a Schneider-Kreuznach C-Variogon lens with 2.8x optical zoom.

Well known for its dialup modem business, Australian manufacturer NetComm has made a significant push beyond its traditional boundaries, and is moving into the general networking, wireless and ADSL modem space.

What will you be buying, using and drooling over this year? Tim Dean looks at the astounding products and technologies due to hit in the next 12 months.

The holes in WEP have finally been plugged and wireless is finally a secure technology. Tim Dean looks at how this was achieved.