Well for me, I just charge normally. As in if outside then no plug then I will use battery. If at home most of the time is plug into the power socket. Sometime just use the batt for 2 to 3 hours then charge it again. Nothing big, then if on 2nd year battery died or before apple care finish, ask them change battery for me.

For app wise
- geektool (run command line for beautifying desktop)
- bettertouch tool
- better snap (make the windows resizing like in windows 7)
- smcnfancontrol
- coconut battery
those are for the systems and of course other app like netbean (PHP), Adobe (photoshop, dreamweaver), MYSQLWorkbench and you know the rest. hahahaha.
ps - most of the app, I go to their website and download it.