I Dig That Funky Bokeh

[username132]

I'm wondering if the Canon SD-500 is a suitable camera for taking photos with bokeh. I don't need anything super proffesional (I'm just a biomedical science student that would like some of student photographs to look nicer than usual). I've been told that an SLR is necessary to play with depth of feild but they're too big and expensive.
The Canon SD-500 gives the spec;
Focal Length 7.7-23.1mm f/2.8-4.9 (35mm film equivalent: 37-111mm)

Which confuses me a bit, because according to the photos I've seen on wikipedia, f/2.8-4.9 is a very limited range suited only to close up objects with the rest of the image out of focus. Have I misunderstood or been misinformed?

[Eastern Herp]

You have mis understood. The numbers quoted are the widest aperture that the camera's lens has and because it is a zoom it has different widest apertures at different focal lengths. I would guess that the smallest aperture would be f22 or f16.
I don't know the camera but you would need to set in aperture priority mode and set it to the widest aperture you can but the images may look a little soft as most lenses need to be stopped down a bit.