The need to code "something completely different" made me do Background Shuffler - a beautiful background changer for Gnome. I wanted to extend the UNIX philosophy to desktop applications so Background Shuffler only changes your background. It does not make coffee.

So I spent a few days hacking and with the help of great tools and libraries like Quickly and appindicator I managed to build this nifty little program that I'm using all the time now.

Features:

• handle all through the indicator icon. No mysterious script running in the background, retain complete control over your desktop at all times
• make the backgrounds change as quickly or slowly as you like
• integrates with F-Spot, so search for certain tags or ratings
• optionally specify a folder that will be searched with photos

But I guess screenshots explain a thousand words.

You'll probably be best running Ubuntu Lucid (10.04). To install the app just download the deb or add the ppa to your sources at: https://edge.launchpad.net/~luopio/+archive/ppa

Bugs, suggestions and patches welcome! Email at lauri(dot)kainulainen(at) gmail.com

So the last post was from Chile. Weeks have passed since and we've seen more and more of Chile (avoiding the devastating earthquake by less than a day), and now we're in Buenos Aires. Argentina has been very nice. Iguazu falls were incredible although very touristy, as such places tend to be.

Just a few days left now. Around 9 months since I left Finland. Wonder if I'll suffer the biggest culture shock once I land in Vantaa.. not really looking forward to it much: it's >25 degrees here, yesterday rained (and they cancelled the Superclásico), but most days are sunny.

Buenos Aires is really nice. Almost as nice as DF in México (I'm biased of course). Having our own apartment in Palermo makes the experience even better and not really that much more expensive since we're three now that Eeva has joined us.

A few days ago we passed the border from Bolivia to Chile. The change is quite remarkable: from one of the poorest to the most developed nation. Prices went up a lot and due to the high season here we're suffering difficulties finding accomodation.

Still some nice places here, like San Pedro de Atacama in the desert and La Serena where we are right now. Thankfully Argentina should be cheaper again :)

Last three weeks were spent in Peru. Landed in Lima, continued to Huacachina to live on a desert oasis (sandboarding, dune buggy riding, etc.), proceeded to Cusco, where we spent 13 nights due to a need to wait for a trek from our chosen agency Lamapath.

Aino got a combination of different illnesses including salmonella which forced her to drop the trip, while I participated (no refunds, no other good dates).

When we finally got out of Cusco we headed out to lake Titicaca and visited the floating islands, stayed in a local family on an island, saw Puno and crossed the border to Copacabana. On the bus ride to the border we remembered that we left our money belts in the Puno hostel.. thankfully after some arranging with our bus company rep, we evaded the need to return to Peru and got the stuff via the company. The hostel didn't make it easy though as their phone was occupied 24/7, hence I do not recommend Qorikancha in Puno.

Now we're in La Paz and finally in front of a computer that has something better than internet explorer (which won't work with this blog). From here to the Jungle I guess.

And as an extra note, we missed the current crisis situation in Machu Picchu by a few days. The river did look quite scary already at that time. Aguas Calientes is a nice little place, but I wouldn't want to be stuck there...

Returned yesterday from a tour on the Mexican south-southwest coast. Went through Zipolite-Mazunte-Puerto Escondido-Acapulco-Zihuatanejo in a bit under 2 weeks. Mazunte was the best, Acapulco the worst. No surprise there.

During the 9 hour busride the environment changed from the continuous 30 degree beach to plus 15 or so here in DF. And it's great! I can wear a sweater! And I'm not sweating all the time!

Tomorrow I'm out of Mexico... off to South America. Sad to leave the good ol MX behind, but on the other hand it'll be nice to find entirely new places.