Unless you are an atypical Linux user, you tend to accept the default apps featured in your distro of choice. After all, if what you use works just fine, why scavenge around for a replacement? If saying yes to that question means you miss out on adding the Listen audio player to your desktop tools, you might change your answer after trying it.

There’s a tool out there that you may not have known you needed. Writing a statement like that make me think I should have gone into the marketing business — but wait. Gardeners, photographers, outdoors enthusiasts, outdoor events organizers, architects — you name it — will all benefit from this miracle tool made possible by the magic that is the magnetic-compass enabled smartphone.

Fotoxx sounds more like a medical solution to fix a patient’s physical appearance. It applies that concept to injecting tweaks on your photographic images. The results are impressive. This photo editing kit has a look and feel that separates it from the expected approaches taken by the likes of Gimp and Krita, for instance. Fotoxx is geared toward photo enhancement; it’s not meant to be an editing fix for other types of graphical images.

Unlimited, on-demand content for a fixed monthly fee? Where have we heard that before? The answer is that we’ve heard it from Spotify for music and from Netflix for movies. Now, from a consortium of Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp., and Time Inc., we have Next Issue, a similar concept for delivering magazines in Android tablet app form.

MyNotex is a handy note-taking app that helps you rat-pack all of your scraps of information and images into a searchable database. It is easy to use and takes almost no time to learn. MyNotex is a bit different from traditional tree-form note-taking systems. It handles more than plain text notations, but it is an old-school technology that is easily replaced with mobile apps and cloud-based note-keeping systems.

It’s the holidays, and if your Android smartphone is feeling a bit neglected, I’ve got the perfect gift for it. Forget automating your life with remote-controlled garage door openers, motorized big-screen TV mounts, and electrically driven drapes — that’s all so last-century. Controlling your phone with a wave of your hand is where it’s at this holiday, in my opinion.

FocusWriter uses an intriguing concept that makes you wonder why other word-processing tools do not offer the same hide-away tool panels to eliminate distractions. It offers a set of writing tools with the ease and speed of unencumbered text editors. Focuswriter is a full-screen writing program. It has no option to resize or minimize.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II could very well be the best high-end smartphone/phablet on the market today. It brings the best features of Android Jelly Bean to this combination of high-powered tablet and state-of-the-art phone. The Note II has so many things to like, but if you have a phobia for really big form factors, beware.

KMyMoney is a comprehensive finance-tracking application that does not require an accounting degree to use effectively. Linux provides several hearty checkbook and banking programs. Among the more well-known are GNUCash, Grisbi, Skrooge and MoneyDance. Each of these contenders for your attention have their own unique look and feel.

iMap Weather Radio from Weather Decision Technologies may be the first Android app- style weather-warning push product that accurately parses public safety announcements. It delivers timely alerts only to those within a geo warning box, rather than to everyone within a broad-brush area.

Gnumeric is a lightweight spreadsheet program that is fast and feature complete. Much like its chief open source competitors OpenOffice and LibreOffice, its graphical user interface is nothing fancy. What it lacks in colorful design or exciting visual menu displays, however, it surpasses with its format flexibility and easy operation.

I’ve gone a bit mad for smartphone GPS and everything that goes with it, including back country topo maps, tablet mounts and in-car mode screen assistant widgets. If you’ve been reading some of my TechNewsWorld and LinuxInsider columns lately, you already know that. I’ve also been kitting out my phone with some highly sophisticated GPS tools and getting good results.

The recent release of Ubuntu 12.10, aka Quantal Quetzal, is a more palatable version of the open source OS built around the Unity desktop environment. Perhaps I am growing more accustomed to Unity, or maybe Canonical’s developers are succeeding in refining the graphical user interface, so it seems less objectionable for me to use.

Developer Alex Gavrishev’s free, widget-oriented app lets you assign home screens specifically to be used in the car, and it lets you create large, easy-to-punch buttons for six shortcuts per screen. The buttons render well at tablet-strength high resolutions, unlike other car apps I’ve tried.

OCRFeeder is a document layout analysis and optical character recognition application. It is a type of software that leaves much to be desired on the Linux desktop. OCR software is a companion tool to scanning a document. The scanner software creates a photo-like image of the scanned document. The OCR component lets you edit the text and then export the edited version into a word processor or page-design program.

Minimal signal bars? In the middle of nowhere? Your phone should automatically roam onto alternative networks designated by carrier roaming agreements, but sometimes it doesn’t — the phone can appear biased towards your home network. I’ve been looking at Roam Control, an Android app — not available in Google Play — that lets you force your phone to roam.

Darhon Finance is a comprehensive personal finance program packed with features to manage finances and bank accounts, track credit cards and investments and plan for expenses. It goes far beyond serving as a typical electronic check or bank book register. That leap to being full financial package puts it in the realm of database functionality.