First off this is in the wrong section, and this is some more or less basic material. Some other tips include:
Updating to the latest Java version. It will cut down on lag spikes if you are running the latest version.
Setting the affinity of Minecraft to high in the Task manager has been rumored to help.
By default, Java allocates a lot of memory for itself, which is unnecessary. You can tell the game to run with less memory (256Mb) by typing this in the command line:
Code:
start javaw -Xmx256M -Djava.library.path=bin/natives -cp bin/minecraft.jar;bin/jinput.jar;bin/lwjgl.jar;bin/lwjgl_util.jar net.minecraft.client.Minecraft
Installing custom optimization mods seems to have the most impact on performance in MC though. Link in my sig (atm) for Optifog, a great tool for reducing lag. Otimine has not been officially updated to 1.4_01, but there is a compatible version you can find. Other random FPS mods are out there, and will probably help too.