I recently got a new MacBook Pro laptop battery. I plan to use it only when travelling and leave the current one inside normally. It has just about enough power to allow me to switch batteries if I need too, and there is no power outlet available.

To condition the new battery I wanted to power-cycle it a few times. A good method for doing this turned out to be:

• Unplug power lead.
• Under "Energy Settings" set Optimatzation to "Better Performace".
• Open Terminal.app, create a few tabs (5+)
• In each tab paste the following command python -c "while True: pass"

This sets the python interpreter running hogging maximum CPU on both processors. After and hour of this the battery needed recharging. The old battery did not last more then 5 minutes under this exercise.