Enhancing battery lifetimes

Hi

I have had a LinuxCertified LC2210 laptop since April, 2004. On the whole, hardware compatibility with Linux has been total and I have been very happy with it (my initial attempt to use software suspend with kernel 2.6.3 got snarled in a buggy bios, and I have not revisited it since). When it was shipped, the battery lifetime was nearly 4 hours. Over the period of the next 6-7 months, I saw this plummet down to 1 hour and change. Then in February, 2005, the battery died utterly (you unplug the power cord and the laptop abruptly powers off). Since I was not travelling much, I just used the power cord with the dead battery still in there (the laptop looks ugly with the battery missing).

Today, I received a new battery (paid some $80 for it). And I want to enhance its life as much as possible. Any general hints about proper working habits (and any Linux tricks-tools to enhance the lifetime) would be very welcome. I have heard conflicting advice on :

1. The desirability of letting the battery completely discharge at least once a week. 2. Not plugging in the power cord when the battery is fully charged.

I am not certain how true untrue the above admonishments are, but I do understand that the battery has a limit on how many times it can be charged discharged (suggesting thereby that I not use the battery at all under most circumstance when I do not expect to be away from a power source), but any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks.