Get a Canon Powershot.
There are a couple of models: SD110, SD410, SD500 depending on how many megapixels you need, and price.
I got the SD110 (about $250), and a 512mb memory card ($150), and its pretty sweet. Lightweight and small, it can also take up to 3 minute videos with sound.
Its very easy to transfer photos to a PC, initially you have to load the software, but then you can just plug the camera in with a USB cable and click "transfer". Thats it. It downloads the pics to your PC creating folders for each date you took pictures.
You can do some more advanced settings with it, but so far I haven't messed with those much. Although it does have a cool panoramic feature I used where you can take a couple pictures of a landscape and "stich" them together.
Check out
www.cnet.com for reviews and prices.