My main laptop is back from the repair shop all fixed up, but I'm still tied to an outlet. It turns out my laptop had a defective system board that actually fried my batteries; I'm outlet-bound until a replacement battery arrives. [sigh]

Right now I'm hunkered down on campus at the .NETDA Database meeting. As I copy data back to my main laptop, Brian Weckler is demonstrating SQL Reporting Services in SQL 2005. (If you're an application developer and haven't checked out SQL Reporting Services yet, you should... it's super cool.)

So, copying data... I'm toting around three computers right now: this one sans battery, my third-string Armada m700 that's older than all the rest but still running strong, and my tablet. Going through airport security on the way back is going to be fun.

I have a backup of my data on a portable drive that I've been working off of, and I wasn't looking forward to scrounging through the drive to find what changed in a week's time. Enter SyncToy, a new PowerToy that takes the pain out of copying data around. It can synchronize files, "echo" (push copies from one master copy), and several other options that I haven't used yet. All you need to do is define a pair of folders where the files will be processed and you're ready to roll. Set it and forget it, plus it provides a preview so you can review changes before they are applied. It's been working great for me at home to copy pictures to the family laptop, and it's much quicker than Explorer (although I don't know if it beats Robocopy in a race). Thumbs up.