I've just read the article, and it's clear that the writer has no idea how batteries or hard drives work.
 
She/He (Mary is an odd name for a guy but I never know) said that a defragmented hard drive has to spin up less often to find the data it needs. In fact, a hard drive needs to spin up in order to read ANY data that hasn't been cached somewhere else. Having the drive defragmented just means the read/write head has to move less, this could save a little bit of power, but defragmenting a hard drive WILL NOT make it spin up less often.
 
The section on batteries was a complete mess, so here's the reality:
Lithium Ion (L-Ion):
>These batteries constantly degrade, and have a lifetime of approximately 18 months, after this they become noticeably "smaller".
>The 1st charge MUST be a full one, if you stop it short the capacity of the battery will be less. Fully cycling the battery the 1st couple of times also helps.
>If you need to store the battery for long periods of time, get it as close to 40% charge as you can, and keep it cool (NOT frozen). This slows down the degradation of the battery. If the it is hot then the degradation is faster, it's a chemical reaction.
>L-Ion cells self discharge considerably faster than Ni-MH cells, but have larger capacities for the same area.
Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH):
>These batteries suffer from a light battery memory (nowhere near as bad as Nickel Cadmium cells (Ni-Cd)), so they must be given a bit of "exercise" (a few full cycles (charge/discharge, not bike)) once in a while.
>They can be expected to last about 1,000 cycles. They typically self discharge at 0.5-1% per day.
>If you need to store one for a long time, store it discharged.