August 2017

There are countless tools that claim to optimize your Windows system, but not nearly as many for GNU/Linux. Now, many GNU/Linux power users will likely say something like, "If you're using Linux you should be able to do all of these things on your own anyway, try using commands like X or Y," however, with popularity in GNU/Linux growing, there are likely many users out there with less experience who could make use of software like this. That's where Stacer comes into play.

Changes is a free application for Android devices that makes it easier to keep track of application updates and changelogs.

Google Play is the default store for Android applications. It is installed on may devices by default, and will also update applications automatically when updates become available.

This happens over Wi-Fi only by default, but means that Android users get the same convenient but problematic updating experience that they get when they install extensions in Google Chrome.

Artpip is a free program for Windows and Mac devices that changes the desktop wallpaper of the operating system once per day to a fine art painting.

The free version of the application is pretty straightforward in terms of use. Once you have downloaded and installed the application on your Windows machine -- I did not test the Mac version -- it will download a new fine art wallpaper each day and make it the desktop background on the device.

Play/Pause is a useful browser extension for the Firefox web browser that adds a pause option to Firefox tabs that have HTML5 media playing in them.

Firefox, like most modern browsers, displays an option in its tab bar to mute audio that plays in a tab in the browser. That's quite handy on its own, but activating mute does not block playback on the site.

Not a big problem if you are listening to Internet Radio, but if you want to listen to something from the beginning to the end, you end up having to rewind to continue playback at the position that you activated mute on.