Various settings and customizations (e.g. Master Pages, Content Types) can be pushed to an entire SharePoint Site Collection pretty easy. But crossing the Site Collection can't be accomplished without building your own solution (which typically involves writing code). The Microsoft guys and girls have released a tool that can help you with these scenarios: SharePoint Cross-site Configurator (http://www.codeplex.com/SPConfigurator)
The SharePoint Cross-site Configurator
The tool automates the process of deploying the MOSS site settings in all or selected sites in a server farm as shown in the following list:
Note The Tool also enables IT administrators to customize the site settings to be deployed.
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Applying Master Pages across a SharePoint server farm.
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Setting up Web Titles for all or selected site collections across the farm.
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Applying audit control settings to all or selected sites.
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Adding advanced settings such as “Allow content type management” to all types of lists.
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Adding a new Expiration Policy at the site collection level.
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Adding a new Expiration Policy to content types, lists, and documents.