Reducing services or processes to increase battery life?

[ProPedderKustoms]

I have about 72 processes running at idle when I start up. I get good like with my 8 cell, about 6 hours, but I am wondering if it would be even better with less processes running in the background...

If so, how do I know which ones to disable? I surely do not want to accidentally disable something important and then mess up my system. Thanks.

[Turbo Audi]

Lots of them are IBM preload instances. If you google the ones you do not recognize, and come to the conclusion your system would run better, then disable them under:

Start/run/msconfig/startup.

I doubt you will see any battery improvement, however.

[Comage]

One often overlooked item to disable is the Infra red port. Disable that, and you are likely to get a significant boost to your battery life.