Quick back story before someone tells me to buy an app. =)
I just got an EVO and it chews through the battery fairly quick. I downloaded JuiceDefender to manage
I think there are two primary types of mobile data connection on an android device: WiFi and 3G/HSDPA/etc.
And afaik you should be able to disable WiFi programmatically, but I think the 3G/HSDPA/etc connections can only be disabled by changing the APN's name. The reason I'm saying this is because the popular application APNDroid does it that way.