Audiophile help - Vinyl to digital conversion (1 Viewer)

Since I've never seen a subject that the FFA hasn't been able to help with, I'm reaching out.  My father-in-law wants to convert all of his vinyl (around 500 albums) to digital.  He's been great to me and my family so I'm looking to do this as a surprise while he's out of town for 3 weeks next month.

• I assume I should buy some sort of software.  There seem to be a ton that come up when I search and I have no idea what to even look for to start comparing them.  Does anyone have any software suggestions?
  
• What hardware would I need?  I saw a USB Turntable that I'm assuming would work but I'm not sure if there's a better piece of hardware specifically for this purpose that I could buy to essentially automate the process.
  
• If I do need the USB turntable, is there going to be an increase in quality between this $300 one and this $90 one.  If I don't need one, how do I get the current turntable connected to my computer (would use a laptop so installing any special cards is out).
  
• How does the transfer occur?  Is it going to be: Start the album > hit record on the laptop > wait for the album to play, or is there some sort of way to speed that process up?  500 albums is a LOT of time so the faster the better!
  
• How do I break the albums up into individual tracks for each song?  I'd assume there would be something built into whatever software I use but I've assumed incorrectly before (one time).
  

Thank you all in advance... you're the best!

Don't think there is a way to speed it, but here is something (Amazon version) to connect your existing turntable to a computer. This has the software (from Roxio website) to do what you need, also.

Nothing to add but 

I think I'm going with this and then ripping as many albums as possible on my own while he's gone, leaving the rest for him.  It's $400 which is about as much as I was willing to spend but seems to be a decent turntable that will do the job fairly intuitively.  I've added it to my amazon cart and am going to wait a couple weeks to see if they send me a coupon advertisement.  Once I get it in, I'll update the post with results.