With the Froyo update removing the control buttons at the top of the notification bar I've had to resort to a few stopgaps, I've also picked up another app or two since then.
I now use Appbrain instead of (or rather with) the default market, which gives me a MUCH better idea of how good an app is and much better searching. I've also replaced GPS/Bluetooth/Wifi controls with a (more accurate) Battery Monitor Widget that sits quietly on my primary screen, switched from launcherpro for several reasons to the newer and imho much faster Zeam, and lastly I've got Android Agenda (a widget) sitting on my main screen as a 4x2 widget. It's a nifty little calendar+agenda widget that ties right into just about anything directly.
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The first one is a simple app that lists what apps are running. You check the ones you want to "kill" and press the kill button and it shuts them down. I'm still learning how Android works, but it's my understanding that the OS automatically multitasks apps when you launch them. That is to say, if you launch an app, it will in most cases reside in memory until you actively close them somehow. Advanced Task Killer is a quick and easy way to drop things out of memory to keep things fast and to save your battery power.
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Your understanding is correct but your conclusion is wrong. Apps are stored in memory, yes, but it doesn't work like a computer. You're not losing any extra juice having that memory full, it saves processor power to have things stored that way, and if necessary android will intelligently close things by itself.
You can find many dozens of explanations ranging from about as detailed as my previous sentence to flowcharts of the actual underlying processes but
here's a nice middleground between all technical explanation and "bad droid".
A short highlight:
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"Task killers make my battery last longer" - FALSE!
Task killers actually do the opposite, they make your battery life shorter! Lets look at what exactly you are doing when you kill a task. You are completely removing it from memory. Ok, so compared to leaving it in memory you are expecting to save battery? No, whether or not that bit of memory is used by an app or is free, the same amount of battery is going to be used. You are actually reducing battery life because when you next go to use that app, you have to fully reopen it, this uses more memory than simply bringing it out of memory.
"Task killers make my phone run faster" - FALSE
Task killers cause your phone to become unstable and jerky. Killing processes is bad because a process may be shared between applications. When you kill it, you are causing disruption within the OS, forcing apps to reopen, to reopen a shared process.
"There is no exit button, thats why i use a task killer" - FALSE
There is no exit button because android was designed to never have the need for a user to close apps. If an app needs closing, android will do this itself.
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Also keep an eye on data usage when you're wirelessly tethering with something like barnacle, if you start youtubing that way on a laptop odds are your Cellco will notice the massive data use and guess what you're up to. They'll never be able to PROVE it since its all the same on their end but they've got enough regulatory capture that the contracts are basically one-sided anyway.