Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away we used to compare notebook specs by what was under the hood. "Dude, I’ve got an overclocked Pentium that’s smokin’!" We don’t hear phrases like that too much these days; well, maybe the Dell Dude still talks that way, but where is he now? No, today we tend to be a little more civilized with our mobile devices and focus on the all important battery life. Let’s face it, the fastest honkin’ CPU isn’t worth a nickel if you battery has no juice left for all those bits and bytes!

Enter Jeremy Toeman over at LIVEdigitally. Not only does Jeremy have an alter-ego as the VP of Market Development over at Sling Media, but he’s an all-around digital technology maven as well. As someone who flies over 100,000 miles by May, you know he’s probably uber-conservative when it comes to battery and power management. Jeremy has a list of ten ways to maximize battery performance that provides plenty of tweaks and strategies for latest laptop in your life. Every item on the list is helpful and I’m going to add number eleven as soon it’s readily available: swap out those spinning platters on the hard drive for a flash-based storage unit. Trust me, I’ve already been shopping around, but I need a 1.8-inch drive; so far, I can only find 2.5-inchers.

-kct