If you're looking for more simplicity then power then there are a million great cameras out there. I'm pretty sure I got my father
this one from Sony. I knew he'd be thrilled with it so I didn't put much effort into picking it out. I saw 8.1 mega-pixels and the price (which the website says it $230 but I don't think I paid over $200 at Circuit City) and grabbed it. This is one piece of electronics where you can just walk into a store and pick one out and as long as you aren't blind to the other prices, you won't get ripped off and walk out of there with something that is really good.
I bought one for myself that had a few more bells and whistles and still only paid about $450 for 9mp, image stabilization, aperture and shutter control (which is more then what my old SLR could do). Nikon unfortunately stopped making it for some reason, but it is a fantastic camera.
But Sony, Nikon and Cannon make some great cameras and it's almost to the point where you can't go wrong. Just try to pick some style you like and get as many mega-pixels as price will let you and you'll be fine.
As for loading the pictures to your computer, I use Picassa from Google, which works with any camera and is super easy.