1/15    What's the easiest/best thing to use to quickly create small GUI
        tools/apps for Windows? (cross-platform ok too) Like the equivalent
        of a perl script with a Windows GUI. Only for myself right now but
        I need to decide what to invest my time learning. So it might as well
        be cross platform if there's no big downside. I have hardly any
        experience with GUIs. Thanks.
        \_ I have the same question but maybe not for a perl script, also
           the GUI can be as simple as possible.
                \_ perl/tk is decent, though you might want to look into VB if you
                   want to interact with the os.  I'd advise staying away from
                   Java at all costs. --darin
                   \_ ya, sounds like VB is what the op is looking for.
                      \_ Is VB cross platform?
                         \_ and free? :( -op
                   \_ Performance aside, why no Java?
        \_ http://wxperl.sourceforge.net
           There's also APIs into wxwindows for Python and other languages.
           I think it's what the original windows version of BitTorrent is
           written in.  --dbushong
           \_ Ok I started playing with wxruby so I'll see how that goes, even
              though it's beta. found at http://wxruby.sourceforge.net.

1/15    When I download a large file via ftp, my router/NAT keep closing the
        control connection.  Is there a way to keepalive from the client side?
        \_ Passive FTP or SCP, if you can.  Otherwise consider tunneling
           the FTP over an SSH session if that is an option.  Of course if
           your router just generally times out sessions after x minutes with
           no regard to source/destination, you're SOL.  -John

1/16    If I own a condon/town house/house/etc. in SJ and I want to rent out
        one or of the rooms, i.e. "share" my place, can I discriminate?  Can I
        refuse to rent the rooms to males/females, singles/married/etc.,
        gays/straights/bi/etc., smokers, drinkers, partiers, nerds, etc.?  Is
        this legal since I am "sharing" the place with them?
        \_ I'm pretty sure I've never been in a rented apartment outside of
           student housing where there wasn't *some* form of discrimination.
           I have no idea what the legality of that is, but if you were to
           decide not to discriminate on the basis of gender, age, and
           marital status, you would be in a *very* small minority of landlords.
           And what about all those apartment ads that are in Chinese only?
           I've always wondered what would happen if a white guy were to call
           one of those up and ask to see the place.
           \-i think if you are a landlord as a business, you really do have
             a lot of obligations. for example, i have had bldg managment
             people could tell me "i am not allowed to answer your question
             whether there are a lot of childrent in the bldg" ... they were
             clearly sympathetic to the inquiry but said thier hands were
             tied. so what they ask explicitly is constrained ... i dunno
             how strong the presumptions are in this area and dunno what
             actually ends up happening.
             \_ Your naivete is almost touching.
             \_ There are of course ways of doing an end-run around some of
                these restrictions.  A common anti-children one is setting a
                maximum occupancy.  For "no young adults" there's a credit
                check, large deposit, and a minimum income figure.
        \- well i am not sure what would happen if you advertised "blacks and
           jews need not apply" ... if anything you'ld probably be asking
           for "extra-judicial remedies", but i do think in a case like this
           you can for all practical purposes pick anybody you want. if you
           have a poker game or movie night or book club at your house, nobody
           can force you to integrate something like that. if your book club
           meets at the public library, it may be another matter. while
           "state action" doesnt mean "wholly run by the govt" and the trigger
           may be as small as something like admitting a student with a pell
           grant or applying for a liquor lic, it still doesnt apply to who
           you invite to your house. it may be an interesting first amd case
           to see if you could be liable for some kind of group defamation
           of you took out an ad for something like "hong kong businessmen
           in vancouver are dirty cheats."           /
                is this psb?   - psb's last fan  ---/
        \_ As it's a rental, I'm pretty sure non-discrimination law applies.
           As a practical matter, you can rent to whoever you want and nobody
           has any recourse.  Where you'd get in trouble is if you put
           "no <protected class> need apply", or if you had many, many rentals
           and consistantly excluded some group.  It's illegal to decide to
           say not rent to gays or something, but you could always say "person
           X was the best fit".
        \_ The Federal Fair Housing Act 48 USC Sec 3606 (b)(2) probably
           applies to you and exempts you from the anti-discrimination
           requirement ("rooms ... in dwellings containing living quarters
           occupied by no more than 4 families living independently of
           each other, if the owner maintains and occupies one such living
           quarters as his residence").
           While it is okay to say M (or F) only and non-smoker/drinker/
           partier (b/c of the noise) you probably shouldn't say no gay
           or married need apply.
        \_ More importantly, can you advertise that you are only looking for
           hot single asian female roommates? My...um...friend wants to know.
           \_ Why do you only want hot asians?  Are you broken?  Hot black
              chicks are just as hot, and so are hot white chicks, and hot
              Latinas, and hot Indians.  I love them all. I will go look at
              my multiracial porn now.
           \_ Single/Female is probably okay. Maybe even asian. Hot is not.
              Even if it were, if your friend expects to get some action
              from his tenant, he is walking into a legal mine-field. Unless
              he wants to defend against all sorts of harassment claims (and
              possible criminal charges) if things go badly, advise him
              against picking tenants b/c they are hot.

1/16    I have some outlook express mail files from a different computer. Is
        there anyway to import them directly into Thunderbird without first
        putting them in outlook? Thanks..
        \_ the outlook files are in EML format right?
           you need to convert them, try something like
           http://csua.org/u/aq3 or http://csua.org/u/aq4
           though it's probably just easier to export all the files
           from outlook express and then import into thunderbird - danh

1/16    How does banks' e-billpay work?  My bank asks for the payee's name,
        (USPS) address, phone #, and account number.  Is it going to send a
        check by snaiil mail to the address?
        \_ They look at the address first.  If it's someone they know (say,
           PG+E), they send the payment electronically; if not, they mail a
           check.

1/16    Looks like there was some voter fraud in Milwaukee as well.
        http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan05/293225.asp
        Or the right wing blog version:
        http://csua.org/u/aq0
        This reminds me of a movement in Berkeley a few years back to
        allow "Same day voter registration."  I don't recall if it got on
        the ballot, but it failed either way.  I couldn't see how anyone
        could support something so transparently designed to facilitate
        voter fraud, but there were pleantly of young activists out
        telling us that it would never be used for evil....
        \_ Please don't delete this. -dgies, !op
        \_ you seem surprised by this... it is endemic.  Even illegals
           vote:
           Texas County Cracks Down on Illegal Voting
           http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1322109/posts
        \_ my friend (US citizen) went from county to county to vote. There
           was no accountability whatsoever. You give you ID (driver's license
           or passport) and they let you vote. This has been going on for
           decades, why do you sound surprised?
           \_ What surprises me is not that it happens, what surprises me
              is how many people _support_ it.  I personally think we
              should shoot anyone who attemts voter fraud.

1/16    Has anyone used the Session Saver extension in Firefox? Someone
        told me that it's an extension that lets you save the URL of
        all the current tabs so that next time you launch Firefox, it'll
        go to all the pages from the previous session. ok thx.
        \_  I use it.  seems to work sometimes.
          \_ sometimes? is it worth installing? new probs?
             \_ It just doesn't work 100% of the time.  A lot of power failures
                and hardware crashes work, and on the whole it's nice to have,
                but sometimes I'll start Moz after a crash and it's remembered
                some week-old state.  <shrugs> -!pp
        \_ Just use opera.
           \_ you're a moron.  -tom
              \_ Responding to your own posts again, Tom?
                 \_ no.  I think the idea that you should pay money for a
                    \_ you are offending Sun Microsystem's employee!
                    marginal browser because it has some minor feature
                    enhancement over the free browsers available is
                    ridiculous.  -tom
                    \_ All software purchases must now be approved by tom.
           \_ Opera imap "support" sucks.  -John