For anything battery powered you plan to store for long periods of time Lithum batteries are the best, only problem they only come in AA, no AAA's yet but there are supposed to be Lithum AAA's coming out this year. I _try_ to check all my gear monthly, even have a reminder set once a month where I create a new folder on my hdd to store scanned documents for the previous month and check out all my gear, but i reality I tend to not do it everytime. I'm getting better though.