Ian Yates' quite literal year in review

Ian Yates is unique in the IT journalism caper, because he is a real, live, practising system integrator as well as a writer.

His writing also has a uniquely wry tone.

So if you absolutely must do some work-related reading over the holiday break, these reviews will at least make you smile while you work:

• Iomega's REV drive
• FreeNAS - an open source project that turns old servers into a NAS
• Netgear's ReadyNAS Duo
• Telstra's 3G WLAN device
• eSata arrays for video editing
• Ericssons W25 fixed wireless terminal, a high-end WLAN
• PA Server Monitor, a $US99 server management tool which rocks
• IP KVM devices
• Netgear's VPN concentrator