A few Droid questions

[thundrio]

I have a Motorola Droid running android version 2.2.2.

I take my Droid almost everywhere with me, from school to work, while I am driving, etc (as most everyone does). However i also like to be able to easily change the audio volume of notifications/calls depending on where I am (full blast when I am not busy, on vibrate at work, and silent while at school or driving so I am not distracted). When I first got my droid I could just use the volume control and change it from noise->vibrate only->silent. However the last system update (spring I think) changed the ui a lot, and now I can either go from noise to silence (unless I go through the menus to find the setting and then I can change it to go from noise to vibrate only). Is there any app or hidden setting to change this?

My other question is in regards to the speed of my phone. I have had it for about a year and a half, and it can sometimes operate very slowly, taking up to 20 seconds to show the home screen when exiting an application. Is there something I can do (clear up space on sd card, format, degfragment) to speed it up?

Thanks

 

[ssddx]

there is a program which allows you to create "toggles" for such things as volume. i forget the name of it (but i i posted it in one of the recent "i just bought a droid" posts.

as far as speed goes... are you running a task killer? on froyo 2.2 and above you do not want to use these as it causes issues. froyo and above automatically manage active tasks.

how many apps do you have installed, how much space /total space do you have? how many applications are currently running? if you have lets say.....35 apps installed that are set to automatically connect and do something but you only use 10 of them, then thats 15 apps slowing your phone down that you dont need. go through your app drawer (and app manager) and see what you do not need.

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some people notice a big difference by "rooting" their phone and installing a custom rom. the most popular ones are cyanogenmod and miui. with some roms (mostly the "kernel" which is used) the system is more responsive. some people even cpu overclock in order for a first gen phone to get a speed boost.

i'm running a droid incredible 1, rooted with miui and i couldnt be happier. i didnt find the need to overclock but its always an option. rooting is pretty painless (once you find the information for your phone) and flashing a new rom literally takes 3 minutes. remember to back up all your data though as it resets your phone to stock.