Help How to limit/shut off whats running

[GNS1310]

This should go in the battery section perhaps but I'm in a hurry and wanna easily find it when I get home from work.
My battery life is awful. I send txt messages and thats about it and my battery drains in a hurry. On days that I 'play' with the phone and use the hell out of it, it drains in fast forward. I read a couple pages of the battery life post and tips and tricks section and probably need to shut down or limit programs running on my phone. I have the power control widget on screen and most of the time have everything off. If surfing the web or whatever I turn wi-fi on, then off after use. If I do nothing with the phone for awhile then switch to task manager it will pull up a list of a dozen or so things running..thought this thing was supposed to kill these apps. Do I just go into each app or widget and find some options to limit everything? What about juice defender (is that right?)? Does it help? Seems like my phone is on the charger more often than not. I'm going to pick up a new battery but would like to learn how max battery life before I do.

 

[woop]

I wouldn't use the task killer if I were you. It might end up killing something you don't want killed (i.e. your alarm clock); or kill other things that might affect the functionality of the phone.

What I would do is, make sure your bluetooth and GPS are always off unless needed. Wifi should be left on if you are within range, otherwise turn that off. Go to your wireless settings, press the menu button to go to advanced settings, and make sure your wifi doesn't turn off even with 3G signal present when the phone goes to sleep. Turn your brightness down a little or put it on auto. Other than that, it might be an app that is not allowing your phone to sleep. IMing apps would be an example of an app that is constantly syncing. What is your up to awake time ratio?