How do I "close" things?

[zuzulous]

This is going to make me sound so old, but other than the beastly 8086 I lugged off with me to college for word processing purposes, I have no experience with any operating systems besides windows. So I'm thrown for a loop by the lack of a little "X" to click on when I want to close my browser or app, etc.

I've just been clicking the Home button and assuming that the app stops running. Does it?

[jbcohen]

Got you beat, I have an 8080 at home and a Timex Sinclair, hapilly retired as a door stop. I have a heath kit around here somewhere, and a pal has an apple in his living room, its one of the original apple computers.

[kennyminot]

Download one of these.

And just for your information, Android actually handles apps "running the background" extremely well, so it is usually not necessary to "kill" them. I like to have a task killer installed just because I sometimes have the need to close an annoying app that won't seem to turn off. This my favorite one.

[woodnboats]

For the most part, "yes". But you can install "Advanced Task Killer" if it really concerns you. It's a Market app, so you may need help getting it.

Android doesn't use resources in the same way as Windows does, so it really doesn't matter.

And, BTW, I had a Geniac when I was a kid. Nothing left now but the documentation.

http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/geniac.html

[emusan]

Using task killers can actually be rather harmful to the system, only use it REALLY sparingly.

[MasterTec]

I started out with an ADAM computer (a computer version of the Colecovision) and was programming in basic with it as young as 7-8 years old.

It wasn't until about 1988 when I touched a PC and about 1990 or so before I could consider myself experienced with MS-DOS.

Funny how I never did get into computer programming. I took a class in turbo Pascal and that pretty much ruined the programming experience for me.

As far as closing programs goes.. well I was as shocked about this as you are! Sometimes pressing the MENU button will bring up options which let you close it. Other times pressing BACK while in the main program menu will close it. Other than that all you can do is to go to settings/applications and close each one manually or use a third party app.

While google may do better with background tasks than microsoft, I'd still like to have an easy way to close a program (and also to decide what loads on bootup).

[ivanjt]

Originally Posted by zuzulous

I've just been clicking the Home button and assuming that the app stops running. Does it?

That is one way.

Another is to use the 'exit' in the menu if they have one - use 'menu' key to bring up the apps menu but be aware not all apps have a menu and some that do don't have an exit or close option.

The third way is to use the 'back' button.

[muranternet]

Background apps: You can force stop from the Settings menu if you want to kill background processes that are not needed, or there are a lot of apps that let you schedule a regular task kill or do it manually. I use Android Assistant. PandaHome has one built into the app drawer. You shouldn't have to worry too much about it on the PE though, as 512MB is actually a ton of memory for Froyo. I do schedule task kills on my Droid, but it's on Gingerbread with 256MB. If I have 40MB free on that I feel like I'm doing well. My wife is using a Nook Color on Gingerbread and as far as I know has been running for a month without rebooting or killing tasks (it also has 512MB).

Old computers: Started on a TI99/4A, then used an Osborne 1 for a very long time. Go CP/M.

[Turtlehead]

My first digital computer was an ANFST-2, one of the very first. Maintained it in 1958-62, of course it was owned by the USAF. Two identical units with over 5000 vacuum tubes in each, a 40 ton air conditioner just to cool each unit. A 7" drum and if I remember correctly it had about 87 bytes. Got our first solid state mods in about 61. It ran 24,7.

[syclone]

I don't go back as far as Turtlehead (in using computers, anyway) My first encounter with a computer was around 1958 when I worked for Fisher Radio Corp. The company installed an IBM computer (a 630 or 660, I think) to handle inventory, sales and Manufacturing. It was basically a Hollerith card sorter with a math unit and a huge chain printer. Avery Fisher, who had a really low boiling point heaved the whole thing out after about 6 months. Even then there was an internet, but no WWW. You could search, but you had to use programs (under Unix) like Archie, and Veronica. A simple search could take 3 days (all at 300 Baud).

My first 'close' encounter with a computer was with a Horizon North Star, a Z80 based computer running CP/M. I did quite a bit of programming in Basic on that unit.

I guess the bug bit and infected me - I've been involved with computers ever since. To show my nerd creds, my license plate is WYS1WYG (The "I" wasn't available).

[zuzulous]

Thanks all. I did notice through settings/applications that several things seemed to be running, and that's why I asked. And I say "seemed" because I'm not entirely sure - I'm used to windows task manager.

Also, thanks for making me feel not-so-old. I think my earliest computer memory is checking out a book from my elementary school library and attempting to make a neighbor's commodore 64 do... something. Danger if I can remember what, though. My brain's not made for programming, though. I get way too frustrated way too easily... and distracted... got a little of that ADD-oh look, a squirrel!

[zuzulous]

That should say "Danged" not "Danger". Stupid auto-complete. XP

[pilgrimfl]

I have been happy using this FREE task killer on my EVO 4G phone:

http://www.amazon.com/INFOLIFE-LLC-A...1697125&sr=1-5

BTW, my first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 (built from a kit), before Timex bought them.
I also had a couple Commodore Amigas.

[manbass]

Originally Posted by emusan

Using task killers can actually be rather harmful to the system, only use it REALLY sparingly.

Why do you say that?

[emusan]

Originally Posted by manbass

Why do you say that?

if you close the wrong app at the wrong time and it doesn't have time to save its data properly you will lose it. If you close out of some apps at /any/ time the system will freeze up and need a full restart, and occasionally you can corrupt system data. Its much the same as using any other task manager on any other computer, but in android's case people use it because they think they need to open up the memory a program is using when in fact they don't. I'm not saying that they are never useful, just don't use it to close out of programs that you don't need to, in fact, they should only be used to close out of a program that has had some sort of error keeping it running, which is very rare.