laptop battery

this is good advice. i didnt do this with my laptop, left it plugged in for about a week or so, and that was it. my battery doesnt last longer then like 30 minutes now. used to go for like 5 or 6 hours easy...

Actually, you're probably a bit mixed up.   Li-Ion doesn't have memory problems like NiCad.  It does have massive degradation issues however:  They only work for approximately 600 full charge/discharge cycles where they give >90% of their new capacity before they rapidly take a -severe- drop in battery life (often to under 50%) which only gets progressively worse.   600 cycles is approximately two years if you use your laptop every day.

No amount of being careful with your Li-Ion will really mitigate that, though the degradation is exacerbated if you use it at high temperatures (and with some laptops, that's just the norm, especially if you've got it on your desk chained to wall power blasting dual cores playing a game.)  In this case, it's good to remove the battery if you're using it for extended periods on a desk plugged in.

It's only NiMH which has neither memory nor degradation problems, NiMH can frequently be charged/discharged more than 5000 times if you have a good charger and aren't using "quick" chargers.   That's why portable radios like used by police and security use NiMH usually, since they get massive battery charge/discharge abuse.  Only downside to NiMH is that they don't have the same charge density as Li-Ion, and Li-Ion are lighter to boot.   Which is why laptops only use li-ion now, else they'd be much heavier and probably bigger.

Li-Ion batteries actually have a small microchip inside which monitors the battery and makes sure you don't get reversed cells / other problems,  which is why you should not ever run your li-ion battery down till it is completely dead  but instead shut it down when your OS starts whining at you.   If you power your system back on after windows does the emergency hibernate thing, then run it till it dies, this can result in a reversed cell.   If you ever do run it to totally dead, recharge it as soon as possible.

Due to the same protection circuitry having to always be running, if you're not going to use your battery for an extended period of time (>2 weeks), you should always leave it at 50% charge before storing it,  storing it dead will cause the same problems, the battery will eventually die, the chip won't get power to run itself,  and you might end up with reversed cells.

(by the way, I didn't make any of this up, it comes in the manual with many laptops, cell phones, etc, and it's generally accepted advice across the 'net)

"Throw away logic and kick reason to the curb"

Well, when it's plugged in and in standby, it's probably not generating much heat, so that's not an issue.   It's really only a problem if you leave it plugged in with the battery connected while the laptop is running, and it's generating a lot of heat which is bad for the battery.

As to leaving it in your bag on standby,  I destroyed a battery that way.  Left a laptop on standby for 2 weeks, it bled the battery beyond the safety point, and it went beyond the point of no return (the protection circuitry stopped running.)   The battery never charged again, and since that's not covered under warranty, had to shell out $140 for a new one.    If you're going to leave it in standby in your bag for extended periods, then hibernate it.    OSX Tiger and up has "Safe Sleep" which will do a standby with optimistic hibernate, so while it's in sleep you can yank the battery and not lose any data.   Windows Vista has something similar as well.   If you can't get into the habit of remembering to take the battery out, maybe you should make hibernate be the default, and only suspend when you're sure you'll be using it again soon.

"Throw away logic and kick reason to the curb"

   Whenever you have the option to use the cord,  stay on the cord, and pull out the battery.

"Throw away logic and kick reason to the curb"

A lot of cellphones are lith-ion now. You can look at the battery and it should identify the type on it.

Running it dead isn't a problem so long as you charge it back soon after.   The protection circuitry kicks in and shuts off the battery before you can ruin it.  Problem is, if you leave it in that almost-dead state for 2 weeks, since the battery is almost dead it just bleeds the little remaining power then really dies.   Most people recharge their cell phone as soon as they get near an outlet, within a day of running it dead, so it's not a problem.

I went past the number of charge cycles on my razr phone.  The battery went from 4 days of life to 1 day of life to eventually only lasting 1-2 hours on a full charge.  Luckily, I had the insurance plan so I was able to get it replaced for free though. 

"Throw away logic and kick reason to the curb"