Monday marks the US national holiday honoring the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr.

While no one can dispute the incredible amount of civil rights progress that the U.S. has made since his death, I believe it would be hard to find agreement that the work is done. Hate crimes still fill the news each week and intolerant groups continue to terrorize those that are different from them. According to FBI statistics, the year 2003 saw 9,100 hate related crimes. That is roughly equal to 25 victims every day. It’s almost impossible to believe that the types of attitudes and belief systems that influence these acts could still be around in the 21st century. In our lifetimes, more people from more races and lands than ever have become interconnected as a result of advancements in technology and the growing global economy. It is hoped that the closer we get to our neighbors on a global scale, the more we will come to depend on and appreciate one another. Unfortunately, the same systems that are helping people to cooperate with and understand one another have also worked as recruitment grounds for those that hate and wish to harm anyone different from themselves.

I hope that everyone will take at least some portion of today to reflect on their own experiences with people of other races and beliefs and really think about how each one of us can help our society, as a whole, to get over that mounatin top and “behold the promised land.”

Yeah there really wasn’t much chance of me being able to resist purchasing the latest and greatest in Apple’s home software suite. I didn’t even make it a week this time. And though I know that I am going to get a sound beating about the head from Ryan for using things like iWeb, possibly even with a *cringe* .Mac account, the truth is I have had some ideas for websites for a couple of years now and I simply do not have the time to learn all the ins and outs of HTML and proper web design. So yes, I am going to sell out to Apple and let them make it all nice and simple for me. I am going to drag and drop artwork and photos from iPhoto 6 right into custom made iWeb templates, and photocasts. I will upload movies and music directly to the sites I have created without trying to figure out how to modify the underlying code. And all the while I will be laughing at the hours I could have spent trying to master Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to become L337 at HTML, CSS and AJAX. But due to life’s time constraints I’ll have to leave the web-fu to Ryan.

Ok so this video is amazing, but the real reason I posted it was to try out a new feature that Google Video is offering. “Put on site” allows you to easily put any of the (presumably free) videos that are hosted on Google right on your site without using any of your own webspace or bandwidth! All you do is hit the button and it will generate the necessary HTML for you and preselect it. You then only have to copy and paste into your blog to have a video right in your post. This is an incredibly cool way to share videos on the net and I expect to see a lot of blogs making use of this tool in the future. Also added is a “Download for” function that will allow you to download videos in the correct format for Windows/Mac, Video iPod, or Sony PSP. Google continues to amaze and delight!

Tom’s Networking has a very informative 3-part guide on how to transform your Xbox Sr. into a network-attached storage device (NAS) for your home network. This is an excellent idea for those that have upgraded to the Xbox 360 and would like to increase the digital storage capability on their home network without upgrading their main computer or buying a second one. Granted, the process involves soldering a chip onto your xbox’s motherboard and dropping in a new hard drive, so it’s not for the faint of heart. But at least you won’t be monkeying with your main PC and as for gaming, are you really going to go back to those Xbox games now that you have a 360?