Hold the key down before powering on (and keep it held for a second or two after). On a Toshiba the key is F2, and it will definitely get you into the setup. On other brands you could try ESC, Del, F1, F2, F4, F10 or F12. Microsoft seems to think that you can access your BIOS settings with a keystroke. Have a look at their instructions on how to Disable Secure Boot:

Open the PC BIOS menu. You can often access this menu by pressing a key during the boot-up sequence, such as F1, F2, F12, or Esc.

Or, from Windows, hold the Shift key while selecting Restart. Go to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options: UEFI Firmware Settings.

Also, if Windows fails to boot 3 times in a row it will enter the boot menu, from which you can access the BIOS. Try booting, then turning it off three times. I had to do that once when I had a hardware fault once.

Or you could use a distro with a Microsoft signature. Good suggestion. Oh, except for some reason you don't want to run Linux.

"Caught" does not imply anything of the sort. If you were caught cheating on your wife, no crime is implied. If you were caught picking your nose, nothing would be done to you (unless you work in food preparation, perhaps).

In this case, "caught" simply means that the telco was found to be doing something that they hadn't told their customers about (and would obviously prefer they didn't know about). And no, we shouldn't stop posting stories like this. Perhaps Optus will get away with it this time, but each time something similar comes to light it will build in the collective-minds of the public. Eventually something will be done to protect privacy; either at the legal level or the personal level like everyone starting to use VPNs. We will all say the VPNs are to protect us from corporate privacy issues, but really it will be to get around the Great Firewall of Australia or data retention laws.

That is complete rubbish. You might have political reasons to dislike the data, models and predictions presented by NASA, but what evidence do you have that NASA has manipulated any of their work for political reasons? How have they "become too political" when they haven't changed what they do or say? If their results match the results of the rest of the scientific community but not what the Republican party says, are they being political or are the Republicans just wrong?

We keep hearing accusations that they (and others) fudge their figures to get more funding, but in a world where institutions that contradict the views of those in charge get defunded and disbanded, why would they mislead the public in such a suicidal manner?

Well said. Being right is never a substitute for feeling righteous.

In what way was it horrifically bad? Name one problem that it had? The following from the link you provided doesn't suggest that it was bad at all:

The Microsoft JVM won the PC Magazine Editor's choice awards in 1997 and 1998 for best Java support. In 1998 a new release included the Java Native Interface which supplemented Microsoft's proprietary Raw Native Interface (RNI) and J/Direct. Microsoft claimed to have the fastest Java implementation for Windows, although IBM also made that claim in 1999 and beat the Microsoft and Sun virtual machines in the JavaWorld Volano test.

The problem with Microsoft's Java was that they implemented extensions that were not separated under the microsoft.* class tree, and that was why they were sued. I think the only reason that you claim that it was bad was that it was made by Microsoft so you just assumed that it must have been.

This is nothing new. The Shared Source Initiative has gone on for years, and provides access to the source of Microsoft products to governments, OEMs, large customers etc.

The difference here is that they are providing it at what they call a "transparency centre", which I suspect is to minimise the danger of the source getting released to the public so we all can inspect the code.

They are hardly coming late to the party, as this is simply the latest in the line that started with Windows XP Starter Edition. It originally was made for specific countries, but it was gradually expanded to worldwide distribution and has had an equivalent cheap level for OEMs for every of Windows since then. In fact, this isn't the first version to be labelled "Windows X with Bing" - that happened with Windows 8.

It does seem like an ambitious target for such a short time, but then Windows XP Starter Edition was only available in 17 countries and it ended up shipping 1,000,000 units. That said, it took them 5 years to reach that milestone.

Bullshit. I seriously doubt that you jump out of Linux into Windows just to watch DVDs, run desktop gadgets, perform a Windows Update, play solitaire and use a USB floppy. Are you seriously saying that any of those functions would be worth swapping your current operating system or that Linux didn't amply fill that need?

I bet you didn't even look at the list before posting your anti-Windows jibe.

Ah yes, the old "I don't use it, some therefore nobody does" trope. The majority of people in the world wouldn't bother to install VLC to replace a function that was built-in to the OS.

I tend to use the standard media player with K-Lite codecs to play DVDs because the picture quality is slightly better on my system. Perhaps playing with VLC's options would fix that, but I can't think of a reason to bother. For video files, I tend not to care which player I'm currently using unless there are audio sync problems (VLC wins for its audio controls).

Can't you read? You don't have to change the security policy if you just sign your script.

You only have to change the policy if you want to edit a script on that PC, and if you do that then surely you are sitting at the workstation and are able to issue to one single command that is needed. If you can't issue the one command required then you have no business trying to edit a Powershell script.

It sounds like you just want to complain, no matter what. If you want to distribute scripts to others then sign them. Problem solved.

If your users want to edit the scripts then they can change their Powershell security policy allowing them to make all the script updates that they want. Problem solved.

In the meantime, the rest of the world who don't use nor care about Powershell just want to have a computer that is protected from malware attacks. They can live a little safer since Microsoft blocked the Powershell attack vector by default. Problem solved.

This is the way security defaults should be. If the ActiveX defaults had been secure by default in the early versions of Internet Explorer then the browser would not have had the bad reputation that it deservedly received. Sure it made it easier for developers (like you) to run their code on their users' systems, but it did so at the cost of security of the majority of people who didn't want that facility.

Off the top of my head (and using verbose commands to make it more obvious), I got:

dir | where -Property Extension -match '.te?xt' | foreach {

$i=0;
$s=(Get-Content $_.FullName);
$s | foreach { if ( (($i++) % 13) -eq 0) { $_+" This is cool" } else { $_ } } | Set-Content $_.FullName

}

I haven't thought of a way to do the file type determination (other than by the extension), but that will do just for a post to an AC. It can all be done on a single line; I added the line breaks and indentation so it wasn't a big line of gobbledegook. Now it is several lines of gobbledegook!

The impressive part of the tab completion of Powershell is how context sensitive it is. When I typed the where command, I entered -p<TAB> and it expanded it to -Property (although just -p would work too). But the fun part was that I could then type e<TAB> and then go through the list of property names that are returned from the dir command that begin with the letter e; first Exists, then Extension. So it was aware what was being passed to the where command on the pipeline and returning the correct properties for that object.

So if I typed the following:

get-content "file.txt" | where -Property

...and pressed the tab key, it gives me the property name of Length as it knows that it is returning a string rather than a file. The same where command will work on (and give appropriate tab completion) on a directory listing, file output, database query, or XML tree list.

I just tried typing help copy on my computer and it worked, yet I don't have an msdn subscription. That said, help is not installed by default. From the equally free online version of Microsoft's documention:

Finally, if you want to write help for your own Powershell code, just type help about_Comment_Based_Help for details on how to do this. No need to buy any licences.

There are numerous reasons. The look of adults will remain more consistent throughout the filming of a movie and between sequels (not to mention a TV series), while no amount of contractual obligation can stop a child actor from growing. I heard on a director's commentary of a film (can't remember which one) that said that they had problems reshooting parts of an earlier scene because the child had changed between the start and end of the movie; probably no so noticeably as you watch the film sequentially, but when it they intercut shots into the same scene then it could be obvious.

Child actors also have limits on how long they can film and require schooling during the shoot. It's possible that trained actors are easier to direct and put in better performances, but that is just speculation and there are definitely examples of children doing some stunning work. Finally, teenagers can be right pricks sometimes (although so can some prima donna actors too).

Of course they do. Most people in the world will have never heard of Sylpheed, let alone know what it is for. It is pretty arrogant to think that people don't use the built-in email simply because you don't.