How do YOU stay up to date?

[Duane Winner]

Hello all again,

I'm finally getting my arms around FreeBSD and the updating processes
and tools. But I'm still trying to come up with good
habits/methods/instructions for updating routines for both myself and my
colleagues who also want to switch to FreeBSD.

I now understand how to use cvsup to keep my src and ports tree current.
I know how to use pkg_add -r to install new sotware, or go into
/usr/ports/whatever to make install. I know how to do portupgrade to
upgrade my installed ports, how to pkg_version -v to see what's out of
date with my tree, and how to cronjob cvsup to keep my trees current. (I
still need to play more with make world and whatnot)

But what do you all out there in BSD land do to stay current as a
practice? I'm looking at this on two fronts: FreeBSD on our laptops
(There will be at least 3 of us with T23's, and I also plan on migrating
most, if not all of my servers from Linux to FreeBSD).

One thing that concerns me, at least on the laptops, is the amount of
time spent compiling new software as it is release, seeing as how we
will be running x, gnome and Yahweh knows what else....I've already
spent a great deal of time recompiling all this stuff to get current.
(granted, I'm still experimenting, blowing my machine away, starting
over, to both learn and write up instructions for the other guys, so I'm
repeating the pains). 

How is this going to affect us longterm with staying current if we are
constantly getting new source and having to recompile? One of my
colleagues has proposed just using packages as much as possible. But
although it seems simple enough to to go "pkg_add -r gnome2", what about
updating? I mean, after installing the package, "pkg_version -v" many
packages are listed as out of date with my current ports tree. So how to
update short of doing a "portupgrade -Pa" and waiting a few or several
hours?

As far as the servers go, I'm almost certain that I'll be standardizing
on 4.9-RELEASE, with minimal software, so I'm not so concerned here
since the security/bug fixes seem far and few between for this release.

I'm just looking for advice. If the long way is the only way, fine. I
need to start writing up some standards and procedures so we can move
on. But if there are more efficient methods, or methods to make things
easier on everybody else, or some technique I'm just plain missing, I'm
all ears.

Thanks for any info, guidance or virtual asskicking you can provide me.
And sorry my post is so long.