Need new Charger and Battery

[Spuck]

So I have a mid year 2009, 13 inch mack book pro that is at the point where it needs refurbishing. I originally got it for school, and didn't take care of it to the best of my ability. I put in 8 gigabytes of ram from crucial last year, and recently had to get a new hard drive.

Now the battery is going, an the charger doesn't seem to be sticking to the port as good as it used to. We cleaned the charger port, and that seems to be helping a little but I will need to get a new one. I'm most likely going to get this done at the apple store (I replaced the memory myself and got my new hard drive put in by geek squad), but I just don't have the tools to replace the battery.

Now that I know about calibration I will defiantly use it, but what is the verdict on keeping your lab top plugged in? I always turn off my computer at night so it isn't running 24/7, and I intermittently have it plugged during the day, but it could go for hours on end being plugged in. Will this degrade the battery, and what is the best way to extend the life. I plan on giving my mac book pro to my parents when I have the money to upgrade my own system, and I want to know the best and simplest way to care for the batter.

Current battery specs are

Battery Charge:
Current Charge: 3853 mAh
Maximum charge: 4035 mAh
95 %

Battery capacity:
Current Capacity: 4035 mAh
Design Capacity: 5450 mAh
74 %

Details: Mac Model Pro 5,5
Age of my mac: 41 months
Battery load cycles: 700

And I don't know if these will help but:

Battery temperature: 30 C
Battery Power Usage: 16.4 Watt

 

[derbothaus]

Your battery is getting a little old. Not much you can do. They wear out. You are at a respectful 700 charge cycles.They used to wear out after 250 or so. You are doing pretty good only being down 1000mAh.
Battery conditioning is not a real useful life extender as the conditioning is built into batteries these days. Use it and forget about it. I like to allow a full charge and drain at least once a week but it is more personal choice and may or may not help. All my batteries seem to stay healthy but I can't say if has anything to do with my methods (if they even matter at this point)