NiCd = Nickel Cadmium, older type of rechargeable battery. Loses it's capcity to hold a charge if not fully discharged then recharged regularley, also known as the memory effect.

NiMH = Nickel Metal Hydride, a newer type of rechargeable battery. Offers higher capacities and improved performance over NiCd. Less prone to the memory effect than NiCd, but can still suffer if not treated correctly.

Li-ion = The lastest type of rechargeable battery. Lighter in weight and can offer higher capacities over NiMH. Supplied as standard in many more upmarket laptops and notebooks. Can only be used in laptops that are designed for them. Use only Li-ion batteries that have a British Standard Kite mark on them or manufactured by the laptops original makers.

RTC = Real Time Clock, a small battery that keeps the computers clock running even when the main battery is removed

Resume = Resume battery, powers the laptop whilst it goes into stand by mode to allow the main battery to be removed and replaced without losing data.

2nd bay battery = Fits in the bay of a laptop normally where the floppy drive or CD/DVD lives. Gives you more mobile power capacity providing you don't need to use the floppy/CD/DVD.

Tips for Extending Battery Life

Cycle you battery
If you have a laptop with either NiCD or NiMH batteries fitted, allow them to go completely flat before recharging them. If you are going to use your laptop for extended periods of time on mains power remove your battery altogether and store it in a discharged state. These do not apply Li-ion batteries as they are unaffected.

Screen
Turn the brightness and contrast-control down as far as you can stand it. Use in black & white mode when possible.

Turn off and/or Remove unneeded components
Turn off internal/external modems when not in use. Leaving your PC card modem plugged in can reduce your effective battery time by up to 25%. Remove PCMCIA cards when not in use.

Turn off AutoSave
This is somewhat risky, but if youre careful to monitor your batterys power level, you can avoid unnecessary disk accesses.

Disable helpers, wizards & other automatic features
Software functions that automatically format text, check spelling, and recalculate your spreadsheet all draw down power.

Use a disk-caching utility
Install a utility program like Norton Utilities or SmartDrive to cut down on disk-accessing time. The cache saves the most-often used or most recently used information to a special virtual memory cache. Then, instead of battery-depleting hard-drive accesses, the computer uses the information in the cache instead.

Clean Leads
Once a month, clean the leads (silver or gold metal strips on end of battery) with rubbing alcohol to ensure that your battery is making a good clean contact with the leads in your system.

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