Also - concerning the issue of pictures taking up bandwidth, open your photo in a recent version Photoshop and save it as "Save for Web" - It will optomize the photo so that it is amazingly small and will load fast even on a dialup modem.

Since you're only talking about low-resolution (for the web) snapshots, almost any camera will do. I had a 1.3 mega pixel Fuji for years, and loved it (gave it to a friend when I upgraded.) Now I'm using a 4 mega pixel Canon, because I like to print from the digital images. I've looked around and tried a lot of the digitals out there and I think the best digital cameras for folks who don't want to get into anything too complicated are the Kodak Easyshare line. They have several models, but they are all very easy to set up and use, and very reliable. The cheapest one (look for a used one) is fine for your needs.

I use a flatbed scanner for regular film photos, and a slide scanner for the slides of my art work ( that are still mandatory by a lot of galleries). Digital works of course are ready for the adjustments for web use. So, a combination of all of these, including the digital camera, gives you choices depending on your needs.

Tell you what. Just scan your paper photos. Scanners cost about a hundred bucks. Or, have a friend scan them for you--it is trivial.

Or, since you do not need high resolution images for the web, you can buy an extremely inexpensive digital camera (if you must) to experiment with the process and quality.

You don't need a digital camera to post images (unless you only want to post photos of your own). Go to Blog-City. They make it so easy even I can do it. No HTML, no fancy-schmancy techno-geek training required.

Erik,

We're on our 4th and 5th digital cameras at the moment, and I'm happy with both of them.

For day-to-day use, we have a Fujifilm Finepix 410. It's probably a little out of date by now (we've had it a year), but it does what we want (takes lots of 3MP snaps and has a decent zoom) and is extremely portable. Amazon wants $439 for this, and you'd want to add a bigger memory chip.

I'm also breaking in on the Nikon D70, which won't meet your specification - too expensive, for starters - but it's a sweet piece of gear. I still have a full film outfit and wanted some crossover compatibility to the digital. Digital gives the freedom to squeeze off lots and lots of shots, although you can fairly raise the issue of whether or not the cost of film forces you to take better pictures in the first place.

Wherever you're leaning, look at the Steve's Digicams website for good detailed reviews.

Good luck with the search. It will be great to see the world through your eyes!