Note: This was originally written by me for myself in the future, if I ever look for another camera. Most of this was written geared towards simple point-and-shoot cameras.

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Weird Words I've Never needed to know until Now
Macro mode: Its the setting that you put the camera on when you're trying to focus in on something really small. Usually, the button that's you need to press to turn it on is marked with a little flower.

Flash Recharge: This is how long you have to wait in-between taking pictures with flash.

ISO: The sensitivity to light. The higher it is the more light the camera sensor will take in. Also when the ISO is higher, the camera will take a picture faster, the picture will be brighter, and there will be more noise.
Noise: Off color pixels, that kind of look like grains in the picture.

Image Stabilization: It helps you get crisp pictures if you don't have stone steady hands. There are two kinds: digital and built-in (optical or CCD shift). Don't be fooled: digital image stabilization is just the camera setting the ISO levels higher so the camera takes the picture faster, it really won't help you that much.

White Balance: It makes the light and coloration look better against different kinds of lighting.

Zoom: There's 2 kinds of this too: optical and digital. Optical zoom is when the camera shifts its lense to focus farther away. Digital is when the camera just crops the out sides of a picture and gives a "zoomed-in" picture. With digital zoom, you get a lower quality picture, because the camera basicly just cropped the parts out that you didn't want, but you can do that on a computer and you might find out you wanted part of the picture that the camera cropped.

CMOS: A kind of sensor, it takes the light that comes in from the lens and turns it into a picture. It really doesn't matter if your camera uses CMOS or CCD, some CMOS camera's a really low quality, but that's because they're cheaper to make as low quality. But, companies that actually make quality cameras (like Canon) use CMOS in their Digital SLR's (the camera's pro's use). So it really just depends on what companies making it.

CCD: A kind of sensor, it takes the light that comes in from the lens and turns it into a picture. And see above for more, because I don't really want to copy-paste it over again.

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Flash Media
Now then, you're probably going to get a little overwhelmed by all the different types of memory out there so here's a little guide. Most people really don't need more than 512mb (generally holds about 400 pictures at 5 megapixels and 800 pictures at 2 megapixels) of space, unless you plan on taking a lot of video with your camera.

SD: This are the most commonly used type of flash memory in cameras, and in general. It's also the cheapest. Generally brands of cameras that use SD cards include: Practically everyone except Sony, Fujifilm, and Olympus. Oh and you can find SD cards in sizes upto 8 gb, cards over 2gb might not be compatible with all cameras though.

xD: These are used exclusively in Fujifilm and Olympus cameras. xD cards are avaliable in capacities up to 2 gb. These are usually the most expensive (by a little bit) of the cards, since they are only used in Fujifilm an Olympus cameras. Some of Fujifilm's most recent models (2007), now take SD and xD cards. Yay for conforming!

MS Pro Duo: These are used exclusively in Sony cameras. They're usually a little bit more expensive than SD cards, but cheaper than xD, and they come in capacities upto 2 gb.

xD, SD, and MS Duo's are all pretty much the same size, as in in-person.

Compact Flash: These are usually only used in SLR-like cameras or Digital SLR cameras of all brands, because some CF cards can hold up to 64 GB. They usually cost about the same as SD cards (for the same capacity), so they're not at all expensive. CF cards are also the largest in actual size, so it's a trade off.

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Megapixels?
Megapixels really don't matter that much. If you're just going to look at your pictures on the internet, send them to friends, and print them out on standard 4x6" prints, then you only need to be taking pictures at 2 megapixels. On the cameras I've used, I really don't notice much of a difference in the quality after they've been printed. However, if you plan on blowing up the pictures to like 8x12, then more megapixels will help some, but at the same time if your camera isn't that good, you're going to be staring down at some really nasty splotches of noise.