Question:
What is a PBI? Like many of you out there, I’m a fan of the commercial-free radio and television networks that exist, like Radio Canada, Knowledge Network and PBS in the U.S.A. Not that I don’t watch and listen to the broadcasters financed by advertising revenue; in fact I rather enjoy some of the commercials, at least for the first few times I take the time to watch them. And I like to watch some sports so it’s virtually impossible to watch a hockey or football game “commercialess” unless one has the technology to filter them out.
Recently, however, I bought a new laptop complete with the latest version of Windows which has all manner of cool features. Unfortunately it also came with some un-cool features that are very annoying, like frequent pop-ups that want to offer me software products (mostly) that are supposed to protect me from various threats to my computer.
In some instances if the warnings are ignored a countdown begins to some type of cybernetic armageddon that “end-of-world” prophesiers like to rant about. Unlike a TV program where the commercial breaks are too frequent, loud and/or annoying, one cannot just switch channels to get rid of them. With a computer, even if you uninstall offending software and delete cookies, chances are that the annoyances will reappear in short order since the perpetrators know where you live and are probably frustrated spammers. I would happily pledge money to a Public Based Internet (PBI) if there was one.
The Vernon PC Users’ Club meets the second Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Schubert Centre in the cafeteria. Call Betty at 542-7024 or Olive at 542-8490 for more information.
