[Psycho0124]

Another good way to maximize the life of the battery is to minimize the current draw you put on it while it's in use. Lap-tops are feature rich little devices and all those features require power to operate. Things like wireless internet. Bluetooth stuff. Even audio and video settings can affect power consumption. Vista is bad about using gfx intensive gui elements and the increased GPU usage to render all that immediately translates to added power consumption (and additional heat production in the unit which can also hurt your battery). To sum up, turn off some of the eye-candy elements you can live without. Disable features you aren't using. If you're not using the audio, muting it should power down the little amp in there and save a little more. All this may only add up to a few dozen mA but in the long run, it will produce less heat and almost certainly survive more charge/discharge cycles as a consequence.