Need advice on digital cameras?

I have been using an older Canon powershot for about 3 years. I took it to Italy with me, and have beat the tar out of it. Now I want an upgrade. Can you guys give me some suggestions?

Here is what I want:
1) I take pictures of flowers a lot so I want something that has really good focus and can take good close ups, one of the pictures I have wanted to take for a while is a rose with its thorns, but the focus on my old camera isn't good enough. I need FOCUS.
2) HOWEVER, I want the best of both worlds. I want to be able to zoom in on something far away and not have it be blurry which I get all the time with my old camera. In Italy I tried to zoom in on clock towers and they turned out blury no matter how hard I tried to focus it.
3) Continuous photo drive
4) Digital
5) I prefer either a Nikon or Canon
6) Under $500 (obviously that is just my dream, if it is more then it is more, but I hope to stay around that price)

I'm doing research of my own and I really like this camera: http://usa.canon.com/..._is_ii_kit

But it doesn't have everything I want. Suggestions or advice will be appreciated!

The T3 is fine, though for extremely close ups you'll need a macro lens (big flowers will probably be fine with the kit lens though). The kit lens does not have a lot of "reach" either. You'd need to buy another lens for that as well, something such as the Canon 55-250 is good bang for the buck.

You can get what you want, but you will have to add another $50 to your budget.

The Nikon D3100 and Canon T3/1100D cameras fall into that budget range, but to shoot closeups, you will need a macro lens. Those will cost you another $500.

In order to "zoom" into something far away, you need a lens like the 70-300 mm, another $600.

As you can see, buying an inexpensive dSLR is only the first step. Buying the lenses you may need (or want) will cost you a lot more.

http://bythom.com/iceberg.htm

What causes blur is camera or subject movement during exposure times that are too long to hand hold. Or you may have been tempted to use the worthless "digital" zoom on your camera

I can recommend you this Nikon camera:
http://www.amazon.com/...003ZYF3LO/

I recently updated my DSLR collection to the Nikon D3100 from the Nikon D70. There are good reviews out there that you should check out. However, I would like to share some of my first impressions.

Pro:
-Better image quality and lower noise at high ISO with the D3100
-MUCH MUCH lighter, which will be nice when traveling
-Larger LCD screen
-11 focus points, including 3D focus which tracks the motion of the subject or camera.
-1080p Video
-14 megapixels
-2nd Generation DSLR
-Quiet, quiet, quiet

Cons:
-No bracketing option. Not a huge deal since I only bracket once a year
-Cannot use my old 50mm 1.8 lens. I knew this before purchasing the camera.
-As of 10/1/2010, Camera RAW for the D3100 is not supported in Photoshop or Lightroom. Need to shoot.jpg + RAW or use Nikon Capture NX2 for RAW files. That should be updated soon, so not a big deal.
-Can hear the lens focusing when recording video.
-No depth of field preview.
-Can't use wireless remote

I'm an amateur photographer and this camera meets my needs. I love the fact that it's small and light, with great quality images. If I were a serious photographer and had more money to spare, I would wait and check out the D7000, which appears to have phenomenal specs. I'm happy with my purchase and I highly recommend this camera.