Mint is pretty much the behemoth of personal budget management. But it's also a tad complex, and it's very American. If you happen to live outside the US, you probably won't be able to use all of Mint's options.

Sprouty is no Mint-killer; it doesn't seem to have any such aspirations, either. It's a very, very simple budgeting application that feels intentionally international: I could not find a single currency symbol.

It's as bare-bones as it gets: First, you tell it approximately how much money you make. From that information, it builds a tentative budget for you - how much you might be spending on health, housing, utilities, food, transportation, and a myriad other areas. The numbers (and areas) are merely suggestions - you're supposed to tweak them for your own situation.

Once you're all set up, you can start logging your expenses. Logging an expense couldn't be easier: You set the date, enter a description and some tags, and then the sum. Sprouty's Overview screen then shows you how you're doing on the various areas of your budget, each represented as a progress bar.

It's very basic, and doesn't aim high. If budgeting seems kind of scary, this is one application you might want to try. The only thing I'd like to see is a mobile client.

Sprouty is a bare-bones personal budgeting application originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Scraping is a technique whereby a website or tool extracts select information from another website. For example, when you type a difficult word into Google and instantly see a definition for that word from some Web dictionary, that's because Google "scraped" that information from the dictionary. The term (and practice) has some negative connotations, because scrapers can be used to steal blog content and for other nefarious purposes. But as Google (and many others) show, it doesn't have to be used for evil.

Scraper is a Chrome add-on that somewhat simplifies the process of scraping information from a webpage. I say "somewhat" because you still have to know XPath or jQuery selector syntax, but that's pretty easy to master if you know a bit of HTML.

Once the extension is installed, you can right-click any page element and select "Scrape similar". You then get a window with a single table row, and the XPath expression leading to the exact element you've selected. It is now up to you to generalize that expression so as to get a broader match. As you can see in the screenshot, it was quite simple to write an expression that yields all of the post headlines and links on the DLS homepage.

Once you have the information you wanted, you can click Export to Google Docs and get a spreadsheet with all of your data in tabular form, ready for further processing.

Scraper is very much a work in progress; while jQuery selector syntax is supported, you only get the XPath expression filled in automatically (and it's too specific). Also, it does not support saving expressions as templates, so every time you want to use it, you have to re-build the XPath expression you need. I'm sure this will all get fixed in due time.

Scraper for Chrome lets you easily create spreadsheets from Web data originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google now offers call recording in Gmail originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Facebook does a Mashup with MySpace, syncs 'likes' across services originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Twitter has secret reputation scores for every user originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

ReadWriteWeb reports that Twitter has just signed an agreement with Gnip, a social data streaming service, to offer half of Twitter's total message traffic for $360,000/year. That is, if you want to analyze Twitter data, you're going to have to pay Gnip for the privilege.

With this move, Twitter is effectively outsourcing the "tweet analysis" business. The tweets sold via Gnip are not for display purposes - meaning, if you buy them, you must keep them largely to yourself and be content analyzing them and using the results. Customers like Google, who use 100 percent of Twitter's firehose for displaying instant search results, will still deal directly with Twitter.

Twitter signs Gnip to provide firehose access for $360,000/year originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Twitter previews official analytics service, prepares to release it for free originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Twitter Tuesday - ex-CEO Jack Dorsey returns to Twitter

Twitter Tuesday - ex-CEO Jack Dorsey returns to Twitter originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo launches Mafia Wars and FishVille originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading How to rescue your friends' email addresses from Facebook and export them to Gmail

How to rescue your friends' email addresses from Facebook and export them to Gmail originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google launches Hotpot for social place recommendations originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Boutiques.com, Google's fashion shopping site, may launch on Wednesday originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Zoho Support adds a Help Desk to its Web-based office suite

Zoho Support adds a Help Desk to its Web-based office suite originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 13 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Digg now has a staff-picked Breaking News section originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Twitter connects with Apple's Ping for easy music sharing originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

SugarSync ups free storage to 5 GB, now allows any number of connected devices originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Twitter Tuesday - Are Twitter location check-ins coming soon?

Twitter Tuesday - Are Twitter location check-ins coming soon? originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Wave now lets you export waves to Zip files originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Spotify Premium seven-day trial now available originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I thought the Web had gotten over the irritating conception that omitting vowels from domain names somehow makes them sound cooler. Alas, LinkPeelr proves me wrong.

Domain name aside, this is a handy service. You feed it with a shortened URL, click Peel, and you get to see where it leads. A nice feature is the ability to easily repeat the process. This is handy in case a shortened URL points to another shortened URL, which only then points to the actual destination. In this case, all you do is simply hit Peel again, and LinkPeelr reveals the destination once more.

I took Download Squad's URL and shortened it with goo.gl, and then I took the goo.gl URL and shortened that with bit.ly, and LinkPeelr worked as advertised. It was very fast, too.

Perhaps more useful than the site itself is its Chrome extension. After installing it, you can hover over any shortened URL and get a nice-looking tooltip with its destination. I say "nice-looking" because it's not styled as a default Windows tooltip; they've applied their own formatting, and it's rather swanky. The only niggle I've experienced with the add-on is that it truncates URLs that are too long, which it really shouldn't do.

LinkPeelr website and Google Chrome extension un-shorten short URLs originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.