I'm trying to update my wallet on my laptop, my desktop currently is up to date.
Can i make my own bootstrap.dat file and xfer it over via usb key?
What does the boostrap.dat file do?
It is a copy of the blockchain up to a certain point in time. You can download it off a torrent so that gives you another option to bootstrap your client. The client starts reading from the bootstrap file and verifying it as it goes along. Once it's done with the bootstrap it hits the bitcoin p2p network for the rest of the blockchain and carries on like any other client.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0