Its almost the American dream for laptop users to have longer battery life and if you have a laptop, obviously you know fast it suck the battery juices dry. Although some may choose to buy a new battery with more cells to give more operating time, chances are you be better off with some power micro-management steps. Its even better if you are using Windows 7.
Windows 7 comes with a power management plan and lets you configure your laptop for longer hours of use. Its is able to micro-manage power allocation to certain features and hardware you could save the configurations for different sets of environment e.g. on a train or coffee shop or when the power plug is jack in. One of the power saving features is hibernate(like a bear). Yes, it needs no cave but it does consume less power and restore your Windows session when you wake it up.
It is swell if you have Windows 7 as one of the way to prolonged your battery hours but for those that don’t have it may try to turn off unused hardware or features. Shutdown hardware such as WI-FI or Bluetooth, remove redundant USB devices, optimize your start-up apps to runs the necessary only and do your scheduled virus scan only when the power plug is connected are some of the micro steps towards longer battery life. The ideas is to be efficient in your laptop power usage and it goes a long way to extend your battery shelf life too with lesser recharge. Check out this video on futher tips to prolong battery power.
If you have any tips or better solution, do post it on comments.