Welcome to smart phones, Android, and AndroidForums.com Roger.

Let's start at the beginning with navigating your phone as many folks have no need for rooting. Let us know which apps you want to delete and why. Sometimes when you understand why something is important or how it works it is no longer necessary to remove it.

 

I'm heading out momentarily for Trick or Treating with my son, so I'll be brief. As far as posting on the forum, you seem to be doing fine so far. At the top left of the screen, you will see a link for User CP, this is the easiest way to find out if there are any responses to threads you subscribed to here. You don't need to navigate to where your thread is to check it.

If you notice my red Moderator badge, that means that I am on of the staffers here. Part of my volunteer job is to organize the forum and enforce the rules. Unofficially, we are also ambassadors for the site and do our best to make new members like you feel welcome. If you ever need a hand with the forum or finding your way around, feel free to click on my username in any of my posts, and hit the "Send Private Message" link. It's like an email, but is within the site. I'll gladly be able to help you with site.

As far as your questions in the site, again, you are doing fine so far. While I have a bazillion posts, I'm by no means that smartest Android person here. This site is built on members helping members, as bg4m3r has. Rest assured there are no dumb questions and there is near certainty many of your questions can be answered.

And finally, for what it's worth, I had never posted on a forum of any kind until I joined here.

Now to your phone questions, how is your phone slowing down? Most bloatware apps (carrier installed apps) though annoying to look at, don't actually hinder performance of the phone. I say most, some vendors / carriers install different bloat than others. If you are using a task killer of any kind, don't. Unlike Windows, Android is designed to run at or near memory capacity. Many folks use task killers in a futile attempt to speed their device up by freeing memory. They are, in fact, both slowing down the device and lessening the life of the battery. Don't be ashamed if you are using one, I did because the clerk that sold me my first phone told me it was a good app.

Thats what I have so far, but I am subscribed to this thread, so I'll see any subsequent questions of posts you have.