Remembering Martin
In observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, here's a quote from him that, unfortunately, is eerily accurate even today:

"If our nation can spend $35 million a year to fight an unjust war ... $20 billion to put man on the moon, it can spend billions to put God's children on our own two feet right here on earth."

Selling on eBay almost as easy as buying
I recently auctioned a few items on eBay, so this seemed like a natural topic for my e-column.

Vacuums are often advertised by demonstrating how they can pick up bowling balls. As if anyone has ever left a bowling ball lying around and thought, 'Gee, I'd better get the vacuum cleaner.' Even bowling alleys don't stock vacuums for customer use.

Why not advertise the vacuum doing something useful like picking up cat hair ... or cat whiskers ... or cats?

Daring Fireball: Die Hard
My favorite Mac curmudgeon (besides myself) included me in one of his recent posts. I'd also like to be put in the camp of those who seriously miss "Put Away" in OS X.

e-Column: Icons move from desktop to Web sites
They may not be the newest or greatest Internet feature, but favicons are a nifty addition to the Web.

It's time to back off a little from the letter X, which has been completely overused, especially in the last few years:

X-mas (there's actually an interesting story behind this variation)
Planet X (acceptable, since X is a variable)
The X-Files (the explanation of why the cases had this title was a little silly)
Mac OS X (somewhat acceptable, since X is the Roman numerical equivalent of 10)
Windows XP (Completely Unexeptable)
Sonic X
Sonic Adventure DX (Director's Cut?)
Megaman X
XXX (the movie, perv)
X2 (you already know how I feel about that title)
LXG
XBox (At least the Box part is true, kind of)
PSX (Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation X?)
Static-X (pretty cool name, actually)
The XFL

Online music's winners and losers: "And when you come down to it, Wharton marketing professor Peter S. Fader says, people really don't care much about having physical ownership of their music."

How did this guy get to be a marketing professor? He claims that streaming model used by RealNetworks' Rhapsody will become the dominant business model for online music because "Streaming will win. It always (does)." OK, name a single example...

Seriously, Rhapsody has been around for a year or more and hasn't made as much money as the iTunes Music Store has in the last four months. How would you explain to those millions of people that "obtaining the songs is a nuisance."