A lot of times we find ourselves in the need to pull a database of information online, but copy and pasting (for example a government database) would take too long.  This forces us to either abandon the data infusion that might give us great insight or to make bad assumptions.

As with many of these types of problems there is a startup working on it.  This specific problem is solved by Import.io.  Their slogan is:

Web Data Extraction Made Easy,  Transform any website into a table of data or a Structured API in minutes without even writing any code.

This software really does what it says and is super simple to use.   Turn any website domain or page into an excel document!  While this is probably a big win in productivity for a lot of us, dont miss the big picture.  There are a bunch of these type of programs available that will make your work easier, but, often times they are either hard to find or we are just not aware that there is a solution for it.

I recommend everyone sign up for these services two newsletters: Product Hunt and Beta List.  They will keep you on the bleeding edge of whenever a new problem solving software comes out!