The Simple Dollar personal finance blog delves into household budgeting—something more of us should do, but are kept away from by fear of spreadsheets, math, and undue time commitments. Blogger Trent's solution is simple and reliable, however, and takes only a willingness to collect paper and toss it in a shoe box. Collect one to three months' worth of receipts, checks, pay stubs, and other paper records of money in and out, drop them on a floor when you're done, and then arrange them however you'd like:

You'll probably find yourself shifting piles around and making new piles throughout this process, as you should. The goal is to find ways to group your spending that's natural to you. Don't try to force it to match someone else's groupings - if a group of receipts or statements feel like a natural group to you, that's how they should be sorted.

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Reader Brett writes in with his favourite Safari tip, harnessing the power of Google and keyword search tool Keywurl into one nifty time-saver. He sets his default Keywurl search to a URL that pulls up Google's first "I'm feeling lucky" result, using this string:

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Windows only: Killing runaway, memory-gobbling processes from Windows' task manager is easy—if you know the name of every process and thread on your system and which apps they match up with. Daphne, a free Windows process management utility, gives you a unique set of crosshairs to drag onto the window of any app giving you trouble. There's also a magnifying glass that reveals properties and even passwords of any window it stops on, and Daphne can call back to its DRK database to identify any apps you might want exlained. Daphne is a free download for Windows systems only. For more tools and tips on knocking down memory-grabbers, see our guide to mastering Windows' Task Manager.

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Web site ReviewGist gathers the results of expert reviews from around the web to give you a better understanding of the pros and cons of a potential purchase. Aside from its deep analysis, which dives into the nuts and bolts of what a reviewer liked and disliked about a product, ReviewGist also provides a great comparison tool to check the ratings of similar products side-by-side. While a lot of people tend to stick to the consumer reviews on the site they're purchasing from, like Amazon, ReviewGist looks like a great place to check out the broader merits of a product before making a big purchase.

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Thunderbird only (all platforms): Thunderbird extension Contacts Sidebar pulls Thunderbird's built-in contact management out of obscurity, making it more usable and accessible. After installing, just hit F4 at any time to toggle Contacts Sidebar's visibility in the Thunderbird sidebar. Once visible, you can easily search, edit, or email contacts from the main Thunderbird interface. We'd mentioned Contacts Sidebar once before among our eight killer Thunderbird extensions, but in light of today's Hive Five contact managers and the 'bird's relatively poor showing, it deserves a mention of its own.

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A group of users at web site EDCForums have tweaked their Leatherman (and Leatherman-like) multi-tools into the ultimate multi-key tools. The process appears to involve grinding the edges off your regular keys then bolting them in place of a few or all of the regular tools (you can mix and match keys and screwdrivers if you like, for example). If you liked our previously posted DIY compact keychain but wanted a little more robust key holder, the variety of user-contributed multi-key ideas at EDCForums are worth a look. It's like a Keyport, only way less expensive and arguably more useful. Thanks Edney!

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US-centric: Health web site Diet.com's Nutrition on the Go service provides nutritional values for food items on popular restaurant menus via a simple text message. To use it, just text the name of the restaurant and the menu item... Read More »

In a dated but still relevant post, technologist Anil Dash calls out a couple of software apps that no one needs to install these days, like WinZip and "sketchy codec packs." I'd add any software manufactured by AOL, Adobe Reader, and digital camera-specific photo software to that list. (You're better off with 7-Zip, Pidgin, Foxit Reader, and Picasa.) How about you? What dated apps do you uncover on your co-workers' and relatives' computers that should have never been there to begin with? Tell us in the comments.

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Sharing a Flickr photo or video has become that much easier, with a new Share this! button that provides tools to email, embed, link to, or blog any Flickr photo or video. Although sharing options aren't entirely new (you could always "Blog this", for example), the email option is the snazziest new feature. It auto-completes your Flickr contacts or accepts any full email address. If you're not crazy about just anyone emailing your photos with this tool, head to your account page to change who can use the Share this feature on your account. If you're like me and you got excited about the idea that you could sideload pics from another Flickr account to your own using your Flickr upload email address, it unfortunately doesn't seem to work.

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Your contact list is growing larger every day, and so are the number of email addresses, instant messaging handles, and phone numbers your contacts use. That means you'd do well to find the best tool for managing your contacts before your contact list gets out of hand. On Tuesday we asked you to share your favourite contact management application; today, the elections are over, and we're rounding up the most popular answers. Hit the jump for a look at the five best and most popular contact management applications, then cast your vote for the contact management solution to rule them all.

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To be honest, BitTorrent aggregator LookTorrent wouldn't be much of a competitor for its Ajax-powered counterpart YouTorrent, except that YouTorrent has dropped most of the popular torrent sources in anticipation of a squeaky-clean sale. What LookTorrent does is provide a top frame to search for torrent download links, and links to 25 sources, one of which will likely have even the most obscure files. If nothing else, LookTorrent's home page is a nice catalog of sites to look through while you're on the hunt for that special download.

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Windows only: iSnooze provides the same kind of iTunes-as-alarm-clock functionality as the Mac-only Alarm Clock 2, but lets you get a lot more specific about your wake-up parameters. Wake up to a certain playlist on certain days at particular times, have it pause as soon as you touch something on your computer, gradually increase the volume until you finally wake up—it's your best friend or worst enemy, depending on how important it is that you get up and going in the morning. iSnooze is a free download for Windows systems only.

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