I'm very fond of the column select feature. But I find it limiting to not be able to do it using the touchpad (when I'm using a mac, for example, and have no mouse). I've done a lot of searching, but could not find this described anywhere. They just describe it the mouse-way and keyboard-way (like this).
EDIT : This was confusing only because of the single button mac touchpad.
Can't believe that I'd completely missed this simple method:
Press Option + click and drag away with the touchpad.