PowerTOP (http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/) is a linux application that can help you manage your laptop battery and get longer batter life. It's not fancy, it's a command-line application. But it provides insight into how many power is being used by all of the applications that you have running. With this information available, you can find out which apps are draining your battery the most and shut them down when you need to maximize battery life. It's very helpful.