Maintaining a powerbook battery

First off all you should charge 100% and a little more. Then use the comp until it the battery is empty (the computer goes to sleep). Do this like 3 times.

If you're sitting somewhere running ordinary power (not battery), then the best thing to do is not to have the battery sitting in the computer. Sometimes the battery will recharge all the time when power is plugged in wich isn't to healthy for battery-life.

I don't think that with the new powerbooks it is necessary to remove the battery when it is charged, as they automatically stop charging at 100%.

But running it down until it sleeps about once a week is good for maintaining battery life, or so I hear.

Charge it when you have an outlet. That's it. You don't need to "condition" the battery. You don't need to drain it completely before charging. You don't need to remove the battery to prevent overcharging. If you use the battery like this, it should be about 1.5-2 years before it loses a significant percentage of its capacity. All the pampering in the world will not prevent the gradual loss of capacity so don't bother.

Most of the battery conditioning tips tossed around are carryovers from the days of NiCd batteries. Those batteries did require "charge management" to prevent rapid loss of capacity. Those machinations are not necessary with NiMH, Li-Ion, and Li-Polymer batteries but such behavior has become something of a social superstition (for lack of a better term). People perform the actions without a solid understanding of the origin of the behavior.

BTW, If you ever see an incredibly short run time on a freshly charged battery, the battery monitoring system just got out of whack. Shut down, take out the battery, put the battery back in. I've only seen that happen once but it can happen.