Digital cameras

Digital cameras

Digital cameras record images onto flash memory instead of onto film.  They're great because you can see the result right away on the camera's screen.  They also allow you to crop images however you'd like, print them at home on your computer right away, and selectively print pictures rather than wasting money on film and development costs of pictures you don't really want. If you prefer, you can also send your digital pictures off for processing and printing. 
One other item to note - with regular 35 mm cameras you can easily get them in a digital format.  Many film development companies offer an Internet upload option (at Wal-Mart for example, this is just 97 cents for the entire roll in addition to your development costs). 

Modem

Modem

If you are at home, then you are most likely using a modem to view this page right now (dial-up modem, cable modem, or DSL modem). The modem is what hosts the communication between your computer and the computers you are connecting to over the Internet. If you're on a network, then you're using a network card (Ethernet card most likely - and that may connect to your cable or DSL modem).  A modem uses your phone line to transfer data to and from the other computers.  Newer cable modems and DSL modems provide about 10 times the speed of a regular phone modem.  These are usually external and plug into a network card in your computer.

Modem stands for "modulator / demodulator" and it encodes and decodes signals sent to and from the network servers.  Good modems should be able to do all the encoding / decoding work on their own without having to rely on your computer's CPU to do the work.