Flickr "Camera Finder"

There are a lot of things to consider when shopping for a digital camera. Once you decide what type you want go to a store and try some different models then read reviews on the ones you like. If you still need some more help, you can look to the world at large and see which cameras seem to be most popular. This is were the Flickr Camera Finder can help. It shows the popularity of all the cameras used by Flickr users (which should cover just about any model made recently I would think). You can see the most popular from each class of camera (phone, point&shoot, DSLR) as well as the most popular brand. You can also search for a specific model and see some pictures taken with that camera. This is very useful, since it allows you to get an idea of real world image quality. If every picture taken with a certain camera is blurry or discolored, it might be a good one to avoid. Unfortunately Flickr doesn't allow you to zoom the pictures to see the fine details, but its better than nothing.
It does seem to me like the Flickr is a bit biased toward DSLRs (maybe because they produce better images, overall) Even so the Camera Finder is at least an interesting and possibly useful tool. Try it here.

Black Friday

Black Friday (the busiest shopping day of the year, the Friday after thanksgiving) is approaching, and ad scans are already being posted. If you plan to try to get a deal on Black Friday you may want to check out this year's Black Friday site as well as shopping forums like fatwallet.com

Some of the scans are pretty bad, so you may want to download them and open them in a real image editor. A good unsharp mask in Photoshop or GIMP can help a lot.

Just be prepared to get up early. Sometimes you can order online and have your purchase reserved in store, getting the discount without having to be the first one to the store.