An excellent camera
I bought a canon ixus IXUS 960 IS in Singapore last year and highly rate this camera. Its capable of creating some exceptional images. The auto mode is pretty good but there's also a degree of manual flexibility, ISO settings, colour balance etc to ensure that results work under low light and in bright sunshine. I really like the cinematic wide screen format with the black horizontal letter boxing - great for landscapes and streetscenes. Also noteworthy is the panorama mode which allows the creation (using autostich software) of stunning 180/360 degree views. Finally the video mode is great - I got some great atmospheric short clips of the atmosphere at a football game.
The shutter is a bit slow sometimes as is the focussing system and I've had problems of corruption and compatability with the 4gb high density SD card I used.
That aside people sometimes make a false assumption that a bulky DSLR with an expensive lens will enable them to take much better photos than a compact. Actually this isn't always true as the IXUS can in certain situations produce results that match a DSLR and actually there's the advantage of it being compact and discreet - great for natual looking candid shots.
Some examples of work captured with the IXUS 960 -
Landscapes -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cactus23/3234691472/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cactus23/2991014419/
Panorma created with autostitch -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cactus23/2995514824/
Video -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cactus23/2668774844/