My newbie android questions

[mgftp]

Ok please bare with me if these are stupid but this is my first android phone. I am loving it by the way, and I was a hardcore BlackBerry lover.

1) How can I see what applications are running? Or close apps? Or is that even necessary? With the BlackBerry you would have to specifically exit out of an app a certain way to get it to close or it is always running in the background and you are using up memory and battery life.

2) Is there anyway to adjust what network it is working off of? In the BlackBerry world it was said taking your phone off global helped with performance and battery life.

3) What saves on the SD card and what saves onto the phones internal memory? I'd prefer to have everything saved to the SD card obviously, in case something would happen to the phone. Are there settings for this?

4) I tried downloading the "tasks" widget from "get more htc widgets" and it seems to download but never install. Where as I downloaded "notes" and everything worked fine. Is there something just temporarily wrong with the to do list app? Do I need to find the file that didn't install and delete it? ...... If this app isn't working for some reason does anyone know of a good free to-do list or notes type app?

5) Anything special I need to do to make sure people don't know where I am? I love all this technology, but one thing I don't want is people knowing where I am because of it. So is there anything I need to do per say, or just not click anything that says broadcast location?

Thats it for now. Lets see how much work I get done today with my new toy in my hands!

 

[hilmar2k#AC]

I'm a bit of a Android newb myself, but I recently made the switch from BB, so I can answer some of your questions.

1) Android manages applications, so you don't have to. It will run things in the background and close them when necessary. Tough thing to let it do when you're used to a BB.

2) Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile Networks

3) I'm not a SIM card expert, but I think you can back up your contacts to the SIM card, but I don't think anything else.

4) Global issue, not just you.

5) You can go into the GPS settings and turn it off.

 

[mgftp]

1) that's awesome.... But you are right, feels weird coming from BBQ'D.

2) what exactly do I do in there? I think I am missing something obvious

3) I messed up. I meant SD card, not sim.

 

[hilmar2k#AC]

1) that's awesome.... But you are right, feels weird coming from BBQ'D.

2) what exactly do I do in there? I think I am missing something obvious

3) I messed up. I meant SD card, not sim.

2) From the home screen, hit what you would think of as the BB button. Then follow the instructiions I posted before to get to the wireless settings. You can adjust the network the phone will use there.

3) The camera will save photos and videos to the SD card. Some apps can be moved there after install. What else are you concerned with?

 

[mgftp]

2) From the home screen, hit what you would think of as the BB button. Then follow the instructiions I posted before to get to the wireless settings. You can adjust the network the phone will use there.

3) The camera will save photos and videos to the SD card. Some apps can be moved there after install. What else are you concerned with?

2) but where do I go from there? I dont see anything about global.

3) I'd prefer to have everything automatically save right to the card. With my BB there was an option for that. Not on this?

Thanks

 

[hilmar2k#AC]

2) but where do I go from there? I dont see anything about global.

3) I'd prefer to have everything automatically save right to the card. With my BB there was an option for that. Not on this?

Thanks

What else do you want saved to the SD card?

 

[juggle]

The settings for switching between CDMA and GSM are actually under Settings -> Call -> Preferred Network not under Settings -> Wireless though there are settings for roaming and CMDA stuff under Settings -> Wireless

 

[jcdrepair]

Ok please bare with me if these are stupid but this is my first android phone. I am loving it by the way, and I was a hardcore BlackBerry lover.

Actually, there's a couple of different way to see what apps are running and/or kill them.

Option #1: Built into Android

Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Running

From there you can see what's running and do a Force Stop if you want.

Option #2: Download Advanced Task Killer from the market place. You can use that to very easily list and kill all/any apps.

Word of warning about Advanced Task Killer - it can have detrimental effect on battery life. I personally do not have it run in the background (which you can do to have it kill apps for you).

Hope that helps.

 

[ioo]

Ok please bare with me if these are stupid but this is my first android phone. I am loving it by the way, and I was a hardcore BlackBerry lover.

1) How can I see what applications are running? Or close apps? Or is that even necessary? With the BlackBerry you would have to specifically exit out of an app a certain way to get it to close or it is always running in the background and you are using up memory and battery life.

Task killers are unnecessary. Android will take care of itself.

2) Is there anyway to adjust what network it is working off of? In the BlackBerry world it was said taking your phone off global helped with performance and battery life.

This too, is unnecessary. If you go into mobile network settings, you will probably see that "GSM/UMTS Options" is greyed out, meaning its disabled already.

3) What saves on the SD card and what saves onto the phones internal memory? I'd prefer to have everything saved to the SD card obviously, in case something would happen to the phone. Are there settings for this?

forget about saving to the SD or SIM card. Use your gmail account to manage your contacts, then they will always be "backed up" in the "cloud". Alternatively, if you turned on Verizons "Backup Assistant" (its an app) then your contacts will be backed up on VZW's servers.

4) I tried downloading the "tasks" widget from "get more htc widgets" and it seems to download but never install. Where as I downloaded "notes" and everything worked fine. Is there something just temporarily wrong with the to do list app? Do I need to find the file that didn't install and delete it? ...... If this app isn't working for some reason does anyone know of a good free to-do list or notes type app?

Evernote is a great note app. Check the market.

5) Anything special I need to do to make sure people don't know where I am? I love all this technology, but one thing I don't want is people knowing where I am because of it. So is there anything I need to do per say, or just not click anything that says broadcast location?

Not really as big of an issue as its been made out to be. Apps wont just randomly post your location unless you tell them to. If your really concerned, turn of all the GPS settings in the Location options. I would leave E911 on though.

Thats it for now. Lets see how much work I get done today with my new toy in my hands!

 

[mgftp]

Actually, there's a couple of different way to see what apps are running and/or kill them.

Option #1: Built into Android

Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Running

From there you can see what's running and do a Force Stop if you want.

When I do this I see 50 things running. Problem?

Task killers are unnecessary. Android will take care of itself.

This too, is unnecessary. If you go into mobile network settings, you will probably see that "GSM/UMTS Options" is greyed out, meaning its disabled already.

forget about saving to the SD or SIM card. Use your gmail account to manage your contacts, then they will always be "backed up" in the "cloud". Alternatively, if you turned on Verizons "Backup Assistant" (its an app) then your contacts will be backed up on VZW's servers.

Evernote is a great note app. Check the market.

Not really as big of an issue as its been made out to be. Apps wont just randomly post your location unless you tell them to. If your really concerned, turn of all the GPS settings in the Location options. I would leave E911 on though.

Thanks a lot for the help!

So GSM is the global and it senses automatically that I don't need it and turns it off?

 

[hilmar2k#AC]

When I do this I see 50 things running. Problem?

Android will manage the apps just fine without user input. Just let it do its thing. You can cause more harm then good by force stopping apps or using an app killer.

I know how compulsive BB people (as that used to be me) are about free memory. That is not an issue on Android. It's hard to do, but just let Android manage the apps.

 

[Vudumedic]

No 50 things running is not a big thing alot of them are system specific and killing them will cause a reset on your phone. The Inc 2 has a hot boot option for a fast reset if you are worried about memory or experiencing a slow down.

 

[jcdrepair]

When I do this I see 50 things running. Problem?

Depends what the 50 apps are. In general, no. However, as you will see if you start looking around on various battery threads, some apps can cause significant problems to your battery life.

My suggestion, root your phone and get rid of a lot of the crap that is factory installed.

 

[Leilan]

Glad this was all adressed. I was about to ask 4/5 of these same questions.

 

[johnnyshinta]

there is no setting to automatically save everything to the SD
you can set your camera/camcorder to automatically save to SD and you can set amazon mp3 to save to the SD card
however apps will always save to the internal memory but can later be moved. this is only good for keeping your internal memory free to download more apps and for your phone to access. this is where it saves texts, emails, etc.
your reason for saving to the SD for a potential telephonic catastrophe is prudent but in the case of apps useless. if you were to move your SD card to a new phone you would have all your "media" (pics, vids, music) but you would need to re-install apps. the app2sd feature allows for a good chunk of the app data to be stored on the SD but the actual executable is on the phone still. if you ever move an app to sd you will see the size go from say 10mb to 180kb. meaning most of the necessary data is moved but it still has the executable on the phone