a friend of mine recommended letting the battery on my laptop run completely flat to condition it. is there anything in particular i should know before i just switch it on and leave it running? i know its a good thing to do to restore the "memory" of a rechargable battery but is it as straight forward as that when it comes to something like a laptop and how often should this be done? Should i wait until i notice a difference in battery life or is it too late then? i know that desktops don't like their power supply being shut off without warning and this seems a similar thing. will the laptop shut itself down before the battery goes completely or will it be OK so long as it isn't actually logged on to Windows?

Depending on the type of battery you have there may be no need to condition it. Voltage depression only really affects nickel cadmium batteries. Nickel metal hydride batteries are very rarely affected by voltage depression and lithium-ion batteries are not affected at all. Most newer laptops have either nickel metal hydride or lithium-ion batteries.

it says underneath that it is a lithium battery, but doesn't say it's a lithium-ion, or is it the same and i'm just stupid?

It's the same thing. Standard lithium batteries are not re-chargeable, so if it's in a laptop it's a lithium-ion.

I agree with 'Budapest"