Even if you're the proud owner of one of Dell's E-Series Latitude notebooks with the 19-hour battery, you still want to squeeze as much runtime from your system as possible. Enter Vista Battery Saver, a free utility that promises to "save up to 70% of your battery"--for any Vista-equipped notebook--by disabling various OS features and optimizing your power plan.

Specifically, the program automatically disables power-hungry features like Aero Glass and the Sidebar when your notebook is running off its battery--and enables them again when you plug in the power adapter.

Needless to say, this kind of clever power management should have been built right into Vista, which has been dinged in the press for sucking an inordinate amount of juice. Here's hoping Microsoft will adopt this homegrown effort for Windows 7. In the meantime, you can download Vista Battery Saver free of charge. It's compatible with all versions of Vista except Basic.