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I bought a new Canon DSLR recently.  The Canon EOS Kiss F—or Rebel XS/1000D depending on your area of the world.  It was a spur of the moment buy and I used my birthday as the excuse.  I’m not sure what quite possessed me to go out and buy it, but I am glad I did.  I find that I enjoy photography quite a bit, though I am starting to realize the potential it has for making one spend copious amounts of money.  The following are some photos I took with the Kiss F and its bundled kit lens.

More images can be found on my Flickr Page.

Updated 07/12/2009: Added a 1650×1024 wallpaper.

Practicing with Illustrator & Photoshop.  My initials in retro rainbow grunge.

Tutorial by Spoon Graphics: Trendy Geometric Lines Tutorial

Recently, a good friend of mine AprilJoy over at Eye-Shiteru and I have been swapping music back and forth—more so her introducing me to some awesome new music than me to her—and I’ve decided to make a short list to share with you all.  In no particular order, here is what I currently have on repeat:

Discovery – LP: Discovery is collaboration album between Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend and Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot. It’s an ecclectic mix of electronica, r&b, and synth-pop.  My personal fav off the album is I Want You Back.

Monkey Majik – Aishiteru:  Fans of Japanese music should already know Monkey Majik.  They are a Japanese pop-rock band with a slight hip-hop beat well known for their single Around the World which was used in the Japanese movie Saiyuuki. Pretty much all of their music rocks, so check them out! Their latest single Aishiteru which means “I Love You” was the theme song for the drama Aishiteru Kaiyou which aired in Japan from April to June of 2009.

Manic Bloom – EP: Manic Bloom is an up and coming alternative rock band from Nashville, TN that was introduced to me by my good buddy the Phongman.  According to GarageBand.com, their sound is similar to that of Muse, Coldplay, and MuteMath.  I can’t describe it myself really, but I do know I like it, and if you’re after some good rock, check them out!

Mellow Beats, Friends & Lovers: This compilation album was released in Japan by Universal Music on June 10th and is as the title describes ultra mellow.  All the songs have a nice hiphop beat mixed with R&B, electronica, and Zen.  Check it out now! (website in Japanese)

Miike Snow – Miike Snow: Miike Snow is a new Indie group whose sound is like a mashup of Coldplay, the Beatles, and Kylie Minogue.  Very cool and very catchy, especially the first track Animal.

Joshua Radin – I’d Rather Be With You:  This one is just a single track Simple Times. This is a folky, acoustic song that you would listen to when you have someone or something on your mind.  I love it.

Shiina Ringo – Ariamaru Tomi: Shiina Ringo is a Japanese musician originally hailing from my area of Japan—Saitama Prefecture.  She debuted with her first single at age 19 and her music is described as light yet moody.  Her latest single Ariamaru Tomi is the theme song for the drama Sumairu (Smile) which also aired in Japan from April to June 2009.  Ariamaru Tomi means “Excessive Wealth” in Japanese.

So there you have it.  If you haven’t heard any of these artists then please check them out!  Likewise, I would love recommendations of other artists.  My musical tastes are pretty wide so please share the musical love!

Extended Buddy List Sort is a third party plugin for the popular Pidgin instant messenging client packaged with many Linux distributions.  It’s an awesome plugin that lets you use multiple criteria to sort through your buddy list as opposed to Pidgins default of one.

There are two pre-built packages, both Windows & Linux, however the Linux package seems to be built for a specific distribution. So I am going to show you how to compile it for your own system.  UPDATE: the creator of the plugin mentioned in the comments that the linux version is not distro specific.  However, in my experience you will need to modify the installation directories.

The test system is 64-bit Ubuntu Jaunty, so if you use another distro then you’ll have to modify accordingly.  To begin, you’ll need to install the Pidgin-Dev and Intltool packages.

sudo apt-get install pidgin-dev intltool

Next download the source package and extract it.  Then from within the folder type the following code to configure and install the plugin.  Modify as needed for your own system.

./configure –prefix=/usr –libdir=/usr/lib64 –localedir=/share/locale && make && sudo make install

The above code will install the plugin into /usr/lib64/pidgin where all my other Pidgin plugins are located, and then install the language file to /usr/share/locale

You’ll notice that the locale files default to the German (de) locale, but don’t worry about that, the configuration menu is still in English.  The creator just happens to be German.

Let the scripts do their thing, and at some point you may be asked to enter your password.  Do so and the files will install and put you right back to the command line.

So far so good. Fire up Pidgin and fIf you did everything right, you should see the plugin in your plugins list.  Enable it and configure it as needed.

And there you have it, easy as pie.  Enjoy, and hopefully my instructions were clear enough that you didn’t run into any problems.  Cheers!