If you find yourself bashing away on your Android device and maxing it to the hilt with numerous background-running apps, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered freezes and slowdowns. As PC makers can attest, we’re using our Android and other newer devices as laptop substitutes these days, and thrashing phones and tablets in the process. However, there are tools to help manage the maxing-out.

Korora Linux has the potential to grow in popularity among users looking for a better, more user-friendly Linux distro that reaches beyond Fedora’s enterprise appeal. Korora 19, released on July 2, is an interesting Linux OS based on Fedora, the community version of parent company Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux. Korora is packed with lots of additional packages, however.

Since time immemorial, the Windows computer has been subject to RAM issues — in particular, the issue that there’s generally never enough. RAM is the fast-accessible headspace, or breathing room, in a personal computer that’s used by programs to do their thing, as opposed to hard drive storage that’s usually used for slower, mechanical file storage.

The latest release of Linux Mint 15, nicknamed “Olivia,” tries really hard to reach new design goals but is marred by a series of petty flaws. The latest rendition of Linux Mint’s flagship desktop environment, Cinnamon 1.8, is ambitious but immature in its execution. If you choose the new MATE 1.6 desktop instead, you get a very workable GNOME 2 fork that may not be worth wallowing in yesteryear.

If you’ve ever hesitated when giving out your phone number to someone, Burner may be for you. The app provides disposable, short-term phone numbers that you can use if you feel the need for some number privacy and don’t want your real number known. Use the temporary number, or “burner,” for as long as necessary and then “burn” it when you’re done to eliminate excessive interruptions in your life.

SolydXK is a Debian-based Linux distribution that offers a choice of two desktops: Xfce and KDE. It is a very new Linux OS, but do not push this new kid aside assuming stability and performance need a lot of maturing. In fact, SolydXK is already a solid and very impressive distro. It has more polish and smoother performance than many older Linux OS counterparts.

Here’s an app that re-invents the TV guide — and yet is about as far from the newspaper TV listings of old as you can get. Boxfish, available at no charge in the Google Play store, shows what’s trending on TV by indexing every spoken word on TV — live. The idea behind the app is that you should be able to find out what’s happening on television live and then choose what to watch.

After a hiatus of more than two years, the developers of Debian last month released a major upgrade. That surely came as good news to fans of this granddaddy Linux OS, but the new Debian 7 “Wheezy” may not be worth the wait if you are happily using more popular Linux options. I feel somewhat like a turncoat for saying that about Debian Linux — I should be revering its 20-year-long lineage.

Midnight Commander is one of those original computing tools that keeps getting better with age. It may be old school, but its file managing capabilities keep it at the head of its class. Midnight Commander is a text-mode file manager that runs in a terminal. It uses a two-panel interface and a subshell for command execution. It is reminiscent of the Norton Commander file manager.

I often run into issues playing video media on mobile devices. It’s haunted me since the days of Windows Mobile on the Palm Treo — remember those early smartphones? Believe it or not, it’s still an issue years later with current tablets and smartphones. The problems that I’ve encountered have generally manifested themselves as either the file not playing or audio and video being out of sync.