That's a so-called "digital transistor" which includes the biasing resistors, but it should work fine with a capacitively-coupled input. You won't need any external resistors with it.
Yeah, that would work, too. It's just a general-purpose NPN without the internal bias resistors, so you'll have to add resistance externally. Check out the Parallax schematics. If you're going to include USB on the board directly, take a look at this thread and follow the links to avoid the troubles that others have had.
Comments
-Phil
-Phil