Ok so for a good while now I have been instructing people to care for their Lithium - Ion (Li-ion) batteries as they would do for Nickel Metal Hydrate (Ni-Mh) batteries and Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cad) batteries. I was actually curious one day about the composition of these batteries and decided to do some research on this topic. I learned that the Li-ion battery technology was a bit different from its predecessors, in that it has other mechanisms built into the battery itself, and to my understanding, you can't just go out and pick up some Li-ion cells. So you have to buy it in a pack. The previous two technologies work best when cycled, charge the battery until its full, and then fully discharge it. Ni-Mh's had no memory effect, and the same for Li-ion's.

It is said that one shouldn't continuously deep discharge Li-ion batteries as this is not good for them. These batteries should be kept cool, and you shouldn't let them discharge to a very low level. If you also wanted to store your Li-ion battery, charge it up to at least 40% and then place it in the refrigerator, NOT THE FREEZER!

One should fully charge the battery, and then take it out and use the a/c adapter for the laptop or other device if possible to extend the life of the battery. These things that I pointed out are the basics that are generally agreed upon in the community, there is a wealth of information available but a lot of it appears to conflict with each other.