DaveMason.com
ComputerTalk with Dave Mason
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.
3,475 unique clips. Each clip appears in one section. Historical conversations, not current advice. Full episodes remain available separately by date.
1414 clips, strongest first.
After buying several phones and finding a paid Bluetooth feature unreliable or disabled, Dr. Dave says the problem is not the underlying technology but its management and implementation. His simple consumer rule is that a company should not advertise and sell a feature that customers cannot use.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After discussing clear attachments and readable messages, Dr. Dave uses a public official’s email evidence to state his simplest privacy rule. Nothing should go into an email unless the sender could tolerate everyone on earth, including one’s mother, seeing it.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave reassures listeners who feel unsophisticated by showing that even organizations with immense expertise and resources struggle with infection and sometimes ignore risk.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave tells listeners that frustration behind a computer is not proof that they alone are failing. Everyone struggles with modern technology, he says, because users have effectively become involuntary beta testers.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave recommends a Microsoft security product after seeing it improve several infected machines, joking that the endorsement feels uncomfortable but concluding that the evidence matters more than his usual allegiance.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave tells overwhelmed users they do not need to become computer experts, but they must learn enough to describe what they have and ask questions. His central line is that getting smarter requires getting over the fear of being stupid and accepting the discomfort of not knowing.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A bright acquaintance’s question about being paid to forward an email leads Dr. Dave through several too-good-to-be-true offers. He would rather listeners be overly skeptical than lose their identity or savings by trusting one scam.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave admires Firefox add-ons but admits that curiosity can lead a user to install so many that the browser becomes slow and unstable. Comparing the problem with Thanksgiving dinner, he says moderation means keeping only the additions a person actually uses.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave notices that a chart’s bars exaggerate the differences shown by its numbers, corrects his own first interpretation and then adds the practical caveat that national service rankings cannot tell a listener which carrier will work best at a particular home or neighborhood.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A failed automated-car demonstration reminds Dr. Dave of Gerald Weinberg's The Secrets of Consulting. The book's entertaining axioms lead to the one he finds enduringly true: no matter what they say, it is always a people problem—the machine did not make the engineering, software, marketing or purchasing decisions.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A caller’s preference for familiar older software leads Dr. Dave to remember friends who worked on the space shuttle. He argues that apparently old computing can reflect deliberate engineering for reliability, because bleeding edge systems bring risks that are unacceptable when human lives depend on them.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
When a friend considers abandoning Google after reading a frightening novel, Dr. Dave does not dismiss the concern. He places it in a hierarchy with the person’s larger vulnerabilities and explains his own rule for advising people: do not merely raise fear—pair the warning with useful ways to respond.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
When Evil Steve asks why the old system matters, Dr. Dave returns to the client's real need and explains the danger of waiting too long to migrate irreplaceable data. He says he loved the challenge because solving it felt like rewiring his brain and going back twenty years.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
During the 2008 downturn, Dr. Dave says efficiency is necessary but considers how canceling one expense can remove work from a caterer and employees. He then links his long-standing frugality to helping listeners find capable tools without paying unnecessarily.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave jokes that learning a powerful creative program can become a lifelong involuntary journey into insanity. A simpler alternative can initially confuse an experienced user precisely because one obvious action replaces the six complicated steps that experience taught them to expect.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After helping a caller think through transferring VHS tapes, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve turn to thousands of valuable family slides and the intimidating time required to preserve them. Dr. Dave gives the answer that reaches beyond the technology: if the project is started it can be spread over a year or two, but if it is not started it never gets done.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave compares troubleshooting to emergency medicine: the person with the problem may panic, but the person trying to help must stay calm and methodical. He says flailing at a computer usually makes things worse and that even he sometimes needs to step back before continuing.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A flat tire on the imaginary jet car leads to a humane reminder that getting upset will not fix a computer. Complete setup and response, not a product recommendation.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave explains why he no longer takes a technology story at face value and identifies what he sees as industry arrogance: technology is not everything to everyone and cannot solve every problem.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave defines Computer Talk as a hype-free zone in a culture saturated with exaggerated claims. The program's job is not merely to describe products but to cut through the noise and identify what genuinely improves a listener's life instead of becoming another burden.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave turns an electronic-voting report into a broader consulting lesson about human error, backups, traceability and audits, then applies it across party lines.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After describing a sophisticated banking Trojan, Dr. Dave refuses to promise perfect safety: reasonable practices reduce vulnerability, but professional attackers mean that protection still includes a small element of luck.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Before asking a guest about an online rumor, Dr. Dave remembers the time he and Evil Steve posted an unconfirmed Andy Rooney item because it sounded plausible. A legal response forced an apology and the removal of a photograph, after which Evil Steve drew a cartoon the brothers thought was even better; the episode became their hard-earned warning about Internet claims.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A listener's workplace receives a call threatening lawyers and auditors unless employees download a program and open the network. Dr. Dave verifies that the representative is legitimate, then tells the company that its heavy-handed approach resembles the intimidation criminals use to make frightened employees compromise a system.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
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.
