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.
562 clips, strongest first.
A report of modified Windows XP aboard British nuclear submarines gives the brothers room to compare familiar commercial software with specialized military systems and turn rebooting, sinking and syncing into sustained banter.
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Caller Jeff reports that the earlier antispyware interface was inaccessible to screen reader users but that Windows Defender’s redesigned interface is fully usable. Dr. Dave welcomes the change, and Jeff connects it to the blind caller from the previous week whose effort to improve visual verification barriers he is now supporting.
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A caller trying to hear the show on an Android phone leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to describe their plan for device-specific links on DaveMason.com so listeners could reach Computer Talk from Android phones, iPhones and iPads.
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Caller Job asks about Firefox versus Internet Explorer, giving Dr. Dave an opening to celebrate renewed browser competition after years of Microsoft dominance. He compares Firefox’s open source support, Opera’s speed and Internet Explorer compatible alternatives without pretending there is only one sensible choice.
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Whole interview connects curiosity about barnacles, chemistry, manufacturing and a prepared mind. Dr. Dave recalls an IBM researcher’s description of a head crash. Preserve guest’s uncertainty about exact measurements and Dr. Dave’s acknowledgement of the work behind apparently accidental discoveries.
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Caller DJ Fresh joins Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to compare early reactions to Windows 8. Dr. Dave observes that desktop Linux may reach consumers indirectly through Android phones, tablets and other devices rather than through the takeover its enthusiasts had long predicted.
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A technology news reader tells Dr. Dave that RSS ended his daily routine of visiting thirty or forty separate websites. Their discussion of Bloglines, NewsGator, XML icons and newspaper syndication captures the moment when feeds were becoming an ordinary way to follow many publishers from one place.
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The brothers react to the Opte visualization as a nebula, making the Internet’s scale tangible.
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Dr. Dave recounts a reported case in which remote-access software and a webcam helped identify a laptop thief. It is a vivid early example of consumer remote access being used for recovery.
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Charles remembers a torpedo data computer aboard the USS Silversides, and the call opens a useful distinction between people and analog mechanisms that performed calculations before digital electronic computers became ordinary.
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A forecast of much faster cable networks leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to imagine remote health care and surgery, then returns after the break to experimental printing of skin for burn treatment. The conversation shows how distant and astonishing these applications sounded in 2005.
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At Kinect’s release, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve compare it with Wii and Move, focus on the absence of a handheld controller and predict that games will increasingly use the player’s whole body as the interface.
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A major technology-history discussion combines Dr. Dave’s enthusiasm for iPod design, Evil Steve’s price objections and the emerging mini-player market. Keep their exchange rather than a short endorsement.
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On Alan Turing's birthday, Dr. Dave explains the Turing machine and the conceptual foundation it supplied for modern computing. He then recounts Turing's work at Bletchley Park and the importance of cracking the Enigma code to Britain's survival during the Second World War.
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Caller John asks how motion sensing, conversational software and IBM Watson might grow into an assistant for older adults, disabled veterans and others who struggle with conventional computer controls, giving the show an early conversation about accessible computing.
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Dr. Dave describes Al Gore’s newly announced Current TV as a television video blog built around viewer contributions and programs as short as fifteen seconds. Heard years later, the combination of short-form video and participatory media is a revealing piece of technology and television history.
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While discussing the collapse of communications after Katrina, Dr. Dave and a caller examine the extraordinary case of a New Orleans Internet provider that remained online from a high floor with a diesel generator and buried fiber. Its staff kept customer sites available while securing water and trying to arrange another fuel delivery.
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As BlackBerry 10 launches first in Britain, Dr. Dave explains why he expects only a limited recovery: the company improved its product but had already surrendered too much momentum to iPhone and Android. Heard years later, it is a clear period snapshot of a major smartphone turning point.
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Dr. Dave asks guest Denny Jaeger how his career led to new animation software. Jaeger describes forming New England Digital, developing computer-based multitrack recording and helping move music and film production from analog to digital before discussing his later interface work.
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Reporting early work to improve access to iTunes, iTunes U and the iPod nano, Dr. Dave notes that digital audio can be especially important to blind users because it opens books, feeds, shows and music through a medium that does not depend on sight. Evil Steve's preference for listening over reading gives the serious point a small human turn.
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Dr. Dave marks Verizon’s long-distance 100-gigabit backbone deployment as a historic infrastructure step and works through why linking Paris and Frankfurt without regeneration mattered at the time.
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Frustration with unreliable spinning drives becomes a forward-looking explanation of why falling prices, lower heat, reduced power use and the absence of moving parts could move solid-state storage into ordinary computers.
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Dr. Dave connects the emerging netbook category to an IBM handheld computer he used around 2000 and Palm's cancelled companion device, then explains why small size and solid-state storage may fill a real niche despite limited screens and performance.
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Dr. Dave explains the DNS system as the Internet's address book, then describes Dan Kaminsky quietly coordinating major vendors to release protection for a fundamental weakness on the same day. What impresses him most is not only the technical discovery but the human achievement of keeping the problem controlled long enough to cooperate—followed by the irony that one important patch breaks many ZoneAlarm connections.
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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.
