The official archive of all available ComputerTalk with Dave Mason radio shows. Spend some time with Dave. Listen to a full show or explore clips by topic.
ON AIR
Clips by topic
3,475 unique clips. Each clip appears in one section. Historical conversations, not current advice. Full episodes remain available separately by date.
Consulting Philosophy
1414 clips, strongest first.
Calm, methodical and no throwing things · Proposed air date:
After guiding a caller toward a buried print-layout option, Dr. Dave reduces the whole repair method to temperament: stay calm, move through the problem one step at a time, do not panic, put down the coffee and avoid throwing anything. A greeting to Evil Steve and a joke about their website photographs make the advice feel like the live show rather than a lecture.
Deciding whether to do it yourself · Proposed air date:
Before advising a caller to move his computer into a new case, Dr. Dave asks about patience, experience and knowing when to stop. The bigger question is what happens if the repair fails and someone needs that computer.
Difficulty does not mean you are an idiot · Proposed air date:
A caller with graphics experience is frustrated that scanned forms cannot be edited cleanly. Dr. Dave begins by setting an honest expectation: the job can be difficult even for experienced people, but it is still possible, and the struggle itself is not evidence of incompetence. The caller joins the joke and they continue from a more confident starting point.
Do not panic, and do not ignore it · Proposed air date:
When Rick asks whether one recovered crash requires professional service, Dr. Dave chooses a middle course: he does not sell an unnecessary visit, but he also refuses to pretend nothing happened and recommends careful monitoring.
Experts forget what beginners do not know · Proposed air date:
Bob says he felt foolish because no one explained that writing a CD meant burning it. Dr. Dave connects the problem to coaching children, where adults discover how much assumed knowledge they carry, and reminds listeners that the foolish choice is refusing to ask a question.
Experts have already made the mistakes · Proposed air date:
Tom contrasts a formal expert with someone who has already done the task. Dr. Dave replies that his own expertise comes from having already made all the mistakes, and jokes that if he has not made them yet, he is about to.
I will research it and email you · Proposed air date:
Tom has an AOL problem Dr. Dave cannot safely finish from memory, so Dr. Dave offers to consult his files and return a direct answer by email. A hardware-store Christmas joke preserves the easy rapport around that promise.
Listeners helped the show follow through · Proposed air date:
Listener Lynn first teased Dr. Dave for promising a useful program and forgetting to name it, then later thanked him for eventually following through. Dr. Dave and Evil Steve say reminders like that led them to work more methodically, finish thoughts and make sure teased subjects were completed before the show ended.
Never email what you would not want broadcast · Proposed air date:
A report about a private workplace email being forwarded across a financial district gives Dr. Dave one last lesson as the producer counts down the show. Never put anything in an email that you would not want broadcast or read by your mother, because either could happen.
No phones, no printouts, still a show · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave discovers just before airtime that none of his fifty to seventy pages of preparation printed, receives no error message and calmly decides to retrace the show from memory while the call-in line is also down.
Regular people have real lives · Proposed air date:
Bob's trouble with basic DVD software prompts Dr. Dave to offer direct help and remind technology experts that most people are not geeks because they have other work and interests. Bob extends the point by imagining Dr. Dave and Evil Steve needing his expertise on a shrimping boat.
Saving their pictures and their voices · Proposed air date:
Richard wants to scan his father's family album, record his father and aunt identifying the people and attach those voices to the pictures for the rest of the family. Dr. Dave recognizes the value immediately and suggests practical 2007 tools for creating a narrated collection, preserving not only the photographs but the knowledge held by the people who remember them.
The $60 lathe with $300 shipping · Proposed air date:
Tom describes winning a small lathe cheaply only to receive a shipping quote several times the sale price. Dr. Dave uses the story to argue for transparent total prices, while Evil Steve points to marketplace reputation as a practical pressure toward honest dealing.
The caller says the fix worked · Proposed air date:
Allison calls back off air to report that the Vista driver Dr. Dave found solved her printer problem. The brothers turn the coincidence of a newly posted driver into a joke about positive intimidation, while Dr. Dave sincerely thanks her because consultants and radio hosts do not always learn whether their suggestions worked.
The eighty twenty rule for a yearlong modem problem · Proposed air date:
Caller Ron has spent a year trying to identify an inexpensive modem that still cannot perform the faxing he needs. Dr. Dave applies his eighty twenty rule to time, money and mental energy, then gently insists that a fifteen dollar replacement is more sensible than continuing a struggle simply because the old hardware partly works.
The handwritten letter that reached AOL · Proposed air date:
Devoted listener Betty reports that the unwanted program from her earlier call was refunded, then describes sending a polite handwritten letter to AOL's chairman. Corporate staff called within a week, listened to her account and corrected conflicting support information. Dr. Dave is thrilled by the resolution and by an old-fashioned letter having real impact.
The Idiot’s Guide to radio syndication · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave recommends a plainly written administration book and reassures Richard that the title is not an insult. After marveling at the series’ range, he jokes that he needs to write an Idiot’s Guide to radio-show network syndication himself.
The listener adds one to Dave's arsenal · Proposed air date:
Caller Mark reports a Comcast page that silently failed when an updated Flash Player was missing. Dr. Dave says he has not encountered that failure, thanks Mark for teaching him something new and hopes to store the clue in his own troubleshooting arsenal for the next person who needs it.
A modem problem reminds Dr. Dave of a client who struggled for two years with an apparently defective multifunction printer and finally asked what to buy as a replacement. Dr. Dave visited before condemning the machine, found that it had been connected to a dead telephone jack and watched it work perfectly when plugged into another one.
When the solution becomes the problem · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave warns that piling on security programs and performance tweaks can make a computer worse, uses RAM boosters as a vivid example and reduces the lesson to “if in doubt, don't.” The political-tax analogy adds humor but is optional.
Why Dave would not buy the new iPad · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave accepts Apple’s right to charge what customers will pay and recognizes the device’s status value, but explains that his own limited budget and practical needs make an old IBM laptop the better choice.
A client question changes your perspective · Proposed air date:
When a friend and client asks whether his company's social-media effort is producing anything, Dr. Dave explains how responsibility to answer a real client changes his perspective. Instead of responding from instinct, he stops, reassesses his own view, studies case examples, examines the data and asks how successful companies themselves define success.
Cheap storage is not preservation · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave explains that low price per gigabyte has come with a reliability cost and that a drive warranty does not restore lost data. He offers two honest choices—pay more for a better-built drive or buy several inexpensive drives and maintain redundant backups—while the brothers use humor to underline the risk.
Browse by year, then month, to find the episodes from that month.
442 proposed broadcast dates, plus 2 undated entries. Dates are based on archive filenames and may be approximate. Some broadcasts survive as separate parts or incomplete recordings.
