The minimalist habit tracker habitctl runs in the command line. (If you don’t know what the command line is, this is not the tool for you.) As such, it’s one of the simplest habit trackers you can use, while still being more sophisticated than a text file (which was developer Sebastian Morr’s previous habit-tracking method).

Windows: The phrase “package manager” sounds a bit ominous, but if you’re smart, you’ve already used one to outfit your Windows PC with all the basics: Ninite. The site couldn’t be any simpler. You pick the programs you want, it creates one installation file for everything, and double-clicking on it installs everything you selected at once.

Mac: Recently we told you how to clear off your cluttered Mac desktop. But if you just want your Mac to stop saving your screenshots to your desktop, commenter Jägs has a solution. Just enter a couple of commands into your Mac's Terminal app, and your computer will create those images in a different folder.

The command line (or Terminal for you Mac fans) is a throwback to a simpler age of computing, before mouse pointers and application windows and desktop wallpaper. Back when it was just you and a window full of text. Operating systems have long since evolved beyond the humble command line interface, but there's still no better tool for quickly disseminating complex information in your operating system -- and you can actually do some other pretty cool stuff with them, too.

Looking up directions on Google Maps is a little clunky on the desktop. You have to select your starting location, your destination and your method of transport. But if you're on Chrome, you can build three shortcuts to get directions right from the address bar, without a single click.

If you use the terminal a lot to code, then you know it's easy to get lost deep inside those blinking commands. Tiny-Care-Terminal is a small little dashboard that reminds you to stop and take care of yourself every once in a while.

If you are acquainted with the command line on Linux or Unix systems, you've probably punched in the wrong command by mistake more times than you'd care to admit. It's particularly frustrating when that mistake concerns shutting down the wrong machine, which can happen when you're SSHing into multiple virtual machines. molly-guard is a tool that prevents accidental shutdowns or reboots.

Mac: In order to manually update any apps you download from the Mac App Store, you have to open the app, click the download tab, wait for it to update, then click the update all button. Mas is a little command line interface that lets you do all that from your favourite Terminal app.

While the Raspberry Pi's operating system is Linux, that doesn't necessarily mean you should go out and memorise every Linux command. The Pi is a different type of computer that's used for different kinds of projects, so the most useful commands differ from what you'd use on an everyday Linux machine. Over at Circuit Basics, they tallied up their 42 most used commands.

Typically, if you wanted to control your Raspberry Pi from outside your network, you'd need to go through and set up your router to allow access from the internet, install some software on your Pi, set up a DNS server, and cross your fingers you're doing that all securely. Dataplicity makes this a heck of a lot easier.

Before Microsoft had Office, before it had Windows, it had an operating system called MS DOS. MS DOS was a command-line operating system, meaning you had to memorise a lot of commands and type them into the computer to get it to do things like show you a list of files. And for the past 36 years, every version of Windows still had a way for people to get to this MS DOS command prompt to find and manipulate files, for those needing to do things with their PCs in that old-school way. Until now.

Mac: Playing around with settings in Terminal is a time honoured tradition amongst tinkerers, but that doesn't make any of those commands any less obtuse. M-cli is a tool that provides you with several plain language commands for common actions.

The Raspberry Pi is a fantastically affordable computer, but when you add in the cost of a display, mouse, and keyboard, things get a little more expensive. Good thing you don't really need them. With VNC, you can access your Pi from a laptop or desktop computer using the same mouse, keyboard, and display that you always do, no rewiring required.

Command line tools can provide more power and flexibility over a graphical front-end, especially for the likes of ImageMagick and FFmpeg. Unfortunately, while some of these utilities are multi-threaded, core utilisation isn't the best when running more than one instance. This is where MParallel steps in, allowing you to explicitly parallelise these tasks.

Windows: Windows 10 automatically downloads updates in the background, which can be rough on slow or capped internet. Fortunately, there's a way to pause downloads from the command line.

Mac: For some silly reason, OS X's TextEdit app's default format is rich text. If you prefer plain text, Defaults Write points out that you can easily set that as your default with a Terminal command.

Mac: You can do just about anything from the command line on a Mac, but with so many utilities, it's hard to remember what commands do what. Mac CLI is a set of utilities that simplifies that.

Not sure how exactly you want to express yourself in emoji? Emoj is a simple little command line tool that allows to crank out a sentence and easily search for emoji that fit the bill.

Mac: The best part of working in the command line is the fact you never really need to touch your mouse, but navigating through the commands you've used can be a bit cumbersome. Over on How-To Geek, they point out a simple way to jump between prior commands using the mark feature.