What's with the Blue Circle??

PCS

New Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2011
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
2 questions: I am using Touchdown 2.0, which I like except that it keeps crashing my phone when I try to make a phone call. Workaround: ATK all active programs, then make the call. That usually works but what a pain.

So, maybe I get rid of Touchdown, and I installed Google Calendar and got it to sync using yet another workaround... <sigh> Anyway, now I have a blue dot at the top of the phone screen that I CANNOT get rid of. It is a notification of an all-day appointment that is coming up. Tried deleting the appointment...now it's gone from the calendar but the !@#! blue dot is still there. WTF????
 

BayouFlyFisher

Rescue Squad
Rescue Squad
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
4,947
Reaction score
17
Location
Baton Rouge, LA
2 questions: I am using Touchdown 2.0, which I like except that it keeps crashing my phone when I try to make a phone call. Workaround: ATK all active programs, then make the call. That usually works but what a pain.

So, maybe I get rid of Touchdown, and I installed Google Calendar and got it to sync using yet another workaround... <sigh> Anyway, now I have a blue dot at the top of the phone screen that I CANNOT get rid of. It is a notification of an all-day appointment that is coming up. Tried deleting the appointment...now it's gone from the calendar but the !@#! blue dot is still there. WTF????

If it was my phone the first thing I would is to get rid of the ATK. It's causing more issues than it could possibly solve.

Good luck.
 
OP
P

PCS

New Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2011
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
ATK question

how do you get the running apps closed then? that seems to be the only way to keep the phone from crashing. why do the apps run themselves anyway? i have always used windows mobile phones, and the only apps running were the ones I opened. with Droid, they seem to open themselves. I couldn't get a good answer to this from Verizon....
 

Backnblack

Premium Member
Premium Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2009
Messages
11,104
Reaction score
28
Current Phone Model
iPhone 7+ 256gb
Touchdown is not the problem....Get rid of ATK.

Quit worrying about the apps in the background.
 
OP
P

PCS

New Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2011
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
okie doke...killed the ATK. also have something called battery saver that does essentially the same thing as the ATK - get rid of that too? also still don't know how to get rid of the blue all-day appointment dot...anyone else have that happen? driving me crrrazzzzy....
 

BayouFlyFisher

Rescue Squad
Rescue Squad
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
4,947
Reaction score
17
Location
Baton Rouge, LA
how do you get the running apps closed then? that seems to be the only way to keep the phone from crashing. why do the apps run themselves anyway? i have always used windows mobile phones, and the only apps running were the ones I opened. with Droid, they seem to open themselves. I couldn't get a good answer to this from Verizon....

Fairly technical answer:
Task Killers: FAQ: Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android

Non-Geek Answer:

How Android Manages Processes

In Android, processes and Applications are two different things. An app can stay "running" in the background without any processes eating up your phone's resources. Android keeps the app in its memory so it launches more quickly and returns to its prior state. When your phone runs out of memory, Android will automatically start killing tasks on its own, starting with ones that you haven't used in awhile.
The problem is that Android uses RAM differently than, say, Windows. On Android, having your RAM nearly full is a good thing. It means that when you relaunch an app you've previously opened, the app launches quickly and returns to its previous state. So while Android actually uses RAM efficiently, most users see that their RAM is full and assume that's what's slowing down their phone. In reality, your CPU—which is only used by apps that are actually active—is almost always the bottleneck.

Why Task Killers Are (Usually) Bad News


Apps like Advanced Task Killer, the most popular task killer in the Market, act on the incorrect assumption that freeing up memory on an Android device is a good thing. When launched, it presents you with a list of "running" apps and the option to kill as many as you want. You can also hit the Menu button to access a more detailed "Services" view, that lists exactly which parts of each application are "running", how much memory they take up, and how much free memory is available on your phone. This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you'll free by killing it. As we've learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.
Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the "autokill" feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.
In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.
What You Should Do Instead

That said, not all apps are created equal. Many of you have used task killers in the past and actually found that after freeing up memory, your phone works a bit better. It's more likely that this is because you've killed a bad app—one that was poorly coded, and (for example) keeps trying to connect to the internet even when it shouldn't. Any performance increase you experience is more likely because you killed the right app, not because you freed up loads of memory (or, in many cases, it's just placebo). Instead of killing all those apps, find out which ones are actually causing the problems. If you really know what you're doing, you may benefit from using a task killer to stop the one or two inefficient-but-loved apps on your phone.
Note, however, that this is still a contested notion. A lot of developers (including ROM builder extraordinaire, Cyanogen) will not even look at your bug reports if you're using a task killer. In this humble blogger's opinion, your best bet is to stay away from regular task killer usage entirely. If you absolutely have to have that one battery-killing app on your phone, though, kill away—just be aware that when you experience a recurring Android bug later on, the task killer may be at fault. Of course, you can just stop using it to determine whether that is or isn't the case.
 

BayouFlyFisher

Rescue Squad
Rescue Squad
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
4,947
Reaction score
17
Location
Baton Rouge, LA
okie doke...killed the ATK. also have something called battery saver that does essentially the same thing as the ATK - get rid of that too? also still don't know how to get rid of the blue all-day appointment dot...anyone else have that happen? driving me crrrazzzzy....

Yes.

[FONT=&quot]Here's my tips (Individual items may not apply your phone):[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1. Go to settings/wireless & networks/mobile networks/Enable always-on data. Uncheck always on data. Your phone will still receive email, text, & phone calls as before as well as internet usage but your battery will last a lot longer.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2. Emails: I don't know what email app you use, but try this. It saves battery power and in some cases emails arrive quicker. This scheme will have you using only the Gmail app on the phone for all email accounts whether they are pop3 accounts or Gmail. Go to the Google Gmail inbox on your computer and log into the Gmail account. On the top right of the screen is an option called Settings. In there is an option to have the Gmail program poll your regular, non-Gmail accounts (From the inbox; Settings/Accounts & Import/ Check mail using POP3). Provide the email address and the password. The Google Gmail program will then poll your other accounts on a frequency from 1-5 minutes and push the email immediately to your phone. The polling frequency is determined by each account's activity - more emails = faster polling. This saves battery power because on the android OS pop3 accounts are polled at a frequency of 1-30 minutes and that really eats battery. Because the phone goes and checks those accounts for mail whether there is mail there or not.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]3. If you are using Live Wall Papers, stop![/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]4. Use wifi any time it is available. It uses a lot less power than 3G and it is much faster.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]5. If there are widgets that automatically update (facebook, weather, etc.) change their update frequency in their settings menu. Set them to 30mins or 1 hour.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]6. Oh, almost forgot, get the extended battery from Verizon.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]7. Turn off the GPS unless you are actually using it. There are some background apps that can burn a lot of power via a live gps.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]8. The Power Control Widget is a good tool for easily turning on and off some of these features (gps, wifi, screen brightness, etc.).[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]9. From the home screen do the following: menu/settings/About Phone/Battery Use. This graph will show the 10 biggest power users on the phone. It should always be Screen as the top user and the android os, android system, phone standby and phone idle should be the other top users. If there is an app listed you should determine if it’s an app you actually use a lot or do you have a rogue app that needs to be uninstalled.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]10. Get Screebl. It will turn your phone off anytime you are not actively using it.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]11. If you have either a task killer or an anti-virus app installed, you should uninstall.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]12. Go to data>system>and delete batterystats.bin after you've charged your phone to 100%. This will help with battery meter accuracy.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]13. D2G - go in to settings, wireless and networks, mobile network and change the network type from global to CDMA only. The d2g is locked out from using the local GSM networks in the US. You don't need global radio turned on in the US just overseas. Go into Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks > Network Mode > and turn off the default setting of Global and turn on CDMA. This assumes you are in the US.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]14. If you have ad blocker, turn it off.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]15. If you are using Launcher Pro, try switching to ADW or Zeam for a while.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]16. Reboot you phone every day or two.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
 

BayouFlyFisher

Rescue Squad
Rescue Squad
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
4,947
Reaction score
17
Location
Baton Rouge, LA
Ok, we've gotten pretty far off topic while trying to help you with your phone!! This is going to sound simplistic and you've probably already tried it, but open the calendar app, settings/set alerts & notifications and then disable Status Bar Notifications for a while.

Good luck.
 
Top