Easy to use software

Welcome, Greg!! First of all - what is it that you want to do with your photos? If it is merely to crop, and do basic enhancements, then Windows Live Photo Gallery will be good enough. You can also use it to create panoramic photos, and if you have 2 similar photos, but one of the subjects is facing away from the camera, you can use this program to automatically stitch the 2 images to create a "master" image where all the subjects are facing the camera.

If your needs are a bit more advanced than that, why not see if you can get a trial copy of Adobe's Photoshop Elements? It's a "cut-down" version of Photoshop, so you get all the flexibility of Photoshop, but with the "complexity" trimmed back somewhat.

Photoshop Elements will do most of what anyone needs, and is pretty easy to master. You can download a trial version of PSE11 from Adobe, or look for an earlier version going cheap - I wouldn't go lower than PSE 9.
There are plenty of tutorials online or you can buy a book to help you get the most out of it.

You can't get any simpler than Picasa. And it's free. Just "google" Picasa.

Photo-shop is the program that I have been using (CS2) you can use it as a basic program,levels,brightness & contrast,sharpen,you can use it in this way and look up on-line tutorials as you progress.

You have a top of the line program used by many togs here,and can you find someone local with more knowledge, to help you under stand the workings.