MAL Updater is a program you can use to update your MAL without opening your web browser and navigating to the website. You can also use it to automatically update for whatever you are watching, but it's not always the best at picking out what you are watching given that files and DVDs rarely actually have the series name in them anymore in a format that MAL Updater can pick up on.
The program also lets you make custom themes, and, after a few years of passively using it, I've decided to start messing around with a Negima! theme after finding out no one had made one and uploaded it to the theme database for the MAL Updater website.