With my current MacBook closing in on its third birthday, it occurred to me the other day that it might be prudent to check out the condition of the battery. Happily, there are several utilities for doing that, and I downloaded a couple of freeware examples to check out their comparative usefulness, as well as that of the MacBook battery.

HyperJuice has announced their Magic Box solution which will allow MacBook users to easily make their own HyperJuice compatible MagSafe charging cable. This DIY solution contains two small boxes that allow you to modify the Apple cable you already own so you can either charge your MacBook or MacBook Pro from a HyperJuice battery or you can charge your HyperJuice battery using your Apple power adapter.

The rechargeable batteries in your iDevices, MacBook, and everything else will eventually begin to lose their charge. It’s simply a fact of digital life. Considering how expensive it is to replace batteries in Apple devices, you’ll want to help that battery hold its charge for as long as possible. Here are a few things you can do—some of which are obvious, some not so much—to extend your MacBook’s battery life so the power’s always there when you need it.

Walt Mossberg has his official review of the new MacBook Pro batteries written and published, and his results and insight are very interesting. He makes some very good points regarding how well the built-in batteries in these machines will work for various users. He also describes the growing trend of laptop manufacturers to have built-in batteries, as research has shown that less than 5% of laptop owners purchase an extra battery anyway.

Although Apple doesn’t exactly have the best reputation with batteries, the electronics company has filed a patent for universal batteries; essentially, batteries that would fit all devices. The batteries would be able to charge outside of the device via a wall charger and would fit into different enclosures to fit to a variety of devices.

For those of you who find yourself burning through MacBook or iBook batteries faster then you can say “recharge,” this nifty little piece of equipment could prove a good investment (and trust me, it is an investment, as it will set you back almost $400). This new tool from Oncore will not leave out a more »