The amount of work time your battery can provide before you need to recharge depends on the equipment you're using with your computer and the steps you take to conserve power while you work.
Battery-saving measures include these items, in order of savings:
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Reduce screen brightness.
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Remove CD-ROM discs when they are not in use.
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Make sure processor cycling is turned on in the Advanced Settings section of the Energy Saver control panel.
Note: Turning on processor cycling may affect the performance of video applications.
Open the Energy Saver control panel for me.
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Turn off AppleTalk when it's not in use.
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Disconnect any external devices not in use.
You can also:
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Quit any open applications that you are not using.
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Set the hard disk to spin down after a short time.
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Set your computer to sleep after inactivity of 5 minutes or less.
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To put a portable computer to sleep, close the lid.
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Put your working files on a RAM disk.
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Depending on your portable computer, you may be able to have your processor operate at a slower speed. Operating at a slower speed conserves battery power, but, it may affect the performance of applications that use a lot of processor power, such as DVD Player. (You can also turn reduced processor speed on and off using the Energy Saver portion of the Control Strip.)
Note: If you don't see the Reduce Processor Speed option in the control panel or Control Strip, then your computer doesn't offer this option.
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