I've chosen this model because it was one of the cheapes Canon compacts with manual control over exposure, and the stabilizer is a nice feature on a compact. IMHO Canon are the only way to go with compacts, they are simply superior to the rest of the gang (though Fujifilm here is a strong player too). If I had to waste money and pursue a serious camera, I would have bought the A720IS for a bit more than the A570, but as I told you this little camera is going to serve me for everyday purpose: the more I shoot with it, the more I long to return back with my Nikon body in hands. Still, it's better to have a small decent camera always with me instead of having "nothing"!

I also made a couple of major changes in my "way of life": I discovered libraries! Now I'm using them to study and concentrate without being distracted by pc/videogames/skies/music/etc... For the last exam I sustained, I was able to study about 8-9 hours a day for almost a week without feeling any major stress! At home I can't usually keep concentration for more than a couple of hours, so this score was outstanding considering my standards!
Besides, I went through another "small revolution": name's Linux. I know, I know... I'm just the last of a loooong list of Linux newbies. Most of us got trapped once we experienced "wobbling" windows and 3D effects of the Compiz environment, but here things went a little different. I've always been a Pc hardcore gamer (stand-alone: never liked to go multiplayer, it was frustrating for me!), thus I never considered switching to Linux due to the well known limitations to the gaming experience (long ago it was because of drivers... now we have decent drivers, but we still lack software houses' support)... things dramatically changed recently.
First, I played a lot of great titles recently, such as Bioshock, The Witcher, Call Of Duty 4, etc... , and even though I enjoyed playing them a lot, I'm forced to think that what I liked more was an overall "experience" these games are giving, not gameplay on its own. We're now enjoying games that have cinematic visuals pursuing Hollywood movies... how different is playing a game today from watching a movie? Plus I'm totally puzzled by seeing games such as Crysis and Assassin's Creed being developed for computer with monster specs: what's that for? With my 1-year old pc I can't play them decently, they look awful con my setup, much worse than GoW/Bioshock/CoD4/etc... where's the innovation? I suspect that these graphic engines are paid by the hardware manufacturers, otherwise no software house would decide on its own to cut off from their potential buyers about 90% of pc owners: that would be economical nonsense.
So, in the end, yeah, they're cutting me out, and I'm saying "ok, I'm happy with it... means more time for my studies and for my photography at least!"
That's it, I tried installing Ubuntu on my laptop, and I totally fell in love with it. It's beautiful, it's fast, it's responsive, it's transparent, easy and free. I bought a second hd for my desktop and I've installed Ubuntu there too, though I'm having some troubles with it. It's a shame, more so since my laptop is working flowlessy since the day linux was installed. I'll probably lose a lot of time understanding what's wrong with my desktop and why the system freezes all of a sudden, but since I've tried Linux I don't really feel I can go back to windows. Everything in windows feels old, sluggish and misplaced once you fully experience a good linux setup. No doubt the complete switch will be a huge pain for me though, since most imaging software is not avaiable on Linux right now (only serious raw editors avaiable are Bibble Pro and LightZone), but I can virtualize windows for that very few softwares I miss (or eventually run them with Wine when they're compatible).
The best setup probably would be switching to Mac OSX, which somehow has most of the strong points of both Linux and Windows, but not only costs too much (since you need to buy Apple's hardware): it also misses a lot of the ethical value of Linux and of its convenience (I'm talking about the huge amount of free software avaiable).

Anyway... this is a period of changes, I hope I'll survive to all of them!
Since I couldn't (and I can't right now), I'm thanking everyone who has stopped by while I was away, who has faved, commented, or watched me: THANK YOU!
I'm uploading something new, few things since I didn't have time to shoot a lot recently!
Features will come afterwards, when I'll find the time to sort them!