When's the last time you sat down and thought about how many apps automatically launch whenever you fire up Windows 10 on your desktop or laptop? You probably can't remember, because it's not really a thing most people do. But you should, because you don't need a bunch of unnecessary apps eating up your system's resources for no reason. If you have an underpowered PC, you're only making your situation worse. And, at minimum, having a bunch of background apps is going to make Windows 10 take longer to load.

I am the absolute worst at this. I know I have to go to bed at a reasonable time, but when lights-out time hits, there I am: on the computer, on my tablet, or on my smartphone, usually doing another lap of YouTube/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter just to make sure I didn't miss anything. And a half-hour later, I'm still doing it.

Microsoft's annual Connect(); developer conference was on this week and the company made a ton of important announcements during the event. There were a few surprises, particularly when it came to Microsoft forging partnerships with its competitors to bring new tools to its developer community. Here are five big announcements from Connect(); you may have missed.

According to Gartner, worldwide spending on enterprise apps will reach US$149.9 billion by the end of the year as organisations eagerly build and implement apps internally. The aim of these enterprise apps is to improve the way employees work and, in turn, increase productivity. That's good and all but there's no point rolling out an app that employees don't want to use it. Most organisations know this but there needs to be an acceptance that an app won't please everybody in the business.

If you are currently reading this on your mobile phone, there's a good chance you're using an Android. Google's ubiquitous mobile OS has surged ahead of Apple in the Australian smartphone market and is now the best-selling mobile platform on the planet. However, there are still plenty of manufacturers and software developers that are reluctant to wet their toes in the Android marketplace. What gives?

Gmail turns five today, so we sat down with Gmail's Senior Product Manager Keith Coleman (virtually via Gmail, naturally) to discuss where it's been, where it's going, and that five-year-old beta tag.

Two years ago, we brought you Lifehacker's best apps of 2005, and many of them are still top-notch.