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.
Len challenges Symantec’s price increase after the guest has left. Dr. Dave declines to speak for the guest, explains the market logic, admits he forgot to ask about price and tells listeners they can vote with their pocketbooks.
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James tells Dr. Dave that the show has reduced his stress and perhaps improved his longevity, then respectfully criticizes how difficult the website's recommended free downloads can be to locate. Dr. Dave explains the tradeoff, acknowledges the criticism as valid and promises to try to improve the links while respecting developers who give useful software away.
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A failing three-year-old television prompts Dr. Dave to describe how much he likes learning to repair things and how much a disposable mentality bothers him, while still admitting that cost, obsolescence and available improvements sometimes make replacement the realistic answer.
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After an experienced caller describes a baffling hardware problem, Dr. Dave reflects on twenty-five years of similarly maddening cases. Even a seasoned professional can feel overwhelmed when a failure seems arbitrary, but detachment matters: just as panic would not help a surgeon, losing one's head does not help solve a computer problem.
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A caller planning a presentation prompts Dr. Dave to say the purpose comes first, to warn against overdesign and to credit Evil Steve's commercial-art background for teaching him the value of white space and silence.
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After joking about a vague caller who asks whether a sender can be traced, Dr. Dave considers listeners determined to hunt down spammers. The effort may work, but he applies an 80–20 judgment: spend energy on controlling the incoming problem and moving forward, because the desire for vengeance can consume more time than the result is worth.
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Dr. Dave admits that one missing zero in a scanner model led him to send a friend the wrong purchase link. He apologizes without excuses, and the retailer's nearly immediate callback and painless return turn his mistake into a lesson about excellent service.
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A discussion of cloud services leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to distinguish privacy from availability and explain why family pictures and passwords should not depend on one remote provider.
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A car appears to have half a tank but will not start as Evil Steve helps their friend Randy complete a purchase. One added gallon reveals the gauge is wrong. Dr. Dave answers with an RV whose desperate owner replaced major parts yet overlooked the same basic problem, showing how stress narrows thinking and why a consultant should step back before attempting intensive, expensive work.
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An email about a browser hijacker leads Dr. Dave to remember a stubborn client repair that failed again only hours after appearing fixed. Discovering a suspicious blank startup entry finally solved it, but the lasting story is his refusal to let the machine outsmart him and his description of difficult troubleshooting as a personal boxing match.
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When a caller’s friend damages a Windows installation, Dr. Dave jokes that the only friends one should help are those one does not want to keep. He then explains the real problem: even a capable helper can be blamed when an unrelated failure occurs, placing the relationship under pressure.
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A listener suggests a cause for a network problem, and Dr. Dave readily admits he may be right. Evil Steve praises that willingness to listen, prompting his brother to explain how much he learns from other people.
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Caller Jeff follows up on a prior hard-drive answer with the option of creating a Windows XP installation disc that already includes Service Pack 2. Dr. Dave recognizes the solution immediately, explains it clearly and thanks the listener for improving the show’s answer.
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Caller Victor points out an important step Dr. Dave omitted when discussing a hijacked email account. Dr. Dave immediately says the caller is absolutely right, admits that he dropped the ball and then clarifies when contacting the provider is useful.
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Dr. Dave explains his on-air standard for guests: he should genuinely like what they offer, and the subject should make a practical difference when listeners use technology in daily life. It is a concise statement of how he tried to make Computer Talk useful rather than merely promotional.
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A caller needs family photographs from a computer that no longer boots. Dr. Dave refuses to assume the worst, recommends qualified help and warns that inexperienced repair attempts can turn a small corruption problem into a major data-recovery failure without the user realizing it.
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A caller’s use of David sparks family-name banter, then Dr. Dave admits his on-screen directions are not working and checks them during the break. The follow-up shows fallibility and persistence rather than a falsely effortless repair.
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Dr. Dave repeats the idea that good judgment grows from experience and experience often grows from bad judgment. Most of what he knows, he says, came from trying something the wrong way, discovering that it failed and then using the lesson to help listeners avoid the same struggle.
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A difficult infection leaves capable clients so frightened that they plan to keep sensitive work on a disconnected computer. Dr. Dave respects their choice while trying to restore a practical sense of risk rather than promise perfect safety.
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A router warning leads Dr. Dave to recall spending months in the late 1990s pressing Sprint over broadband wireless security. His principle is that a provider cannot simply blame customers who were never equipped to act as system administrators; it must protect them or teach them.
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A sounder boasts that Dr. Dave can repair a computer with a hairpin and duct tape, and Evil Steve says he has actually watched him do it. Dr. Dave explains that he always keeps a paperclip in his briefcase because it can reset hardware, open a stuck optical drive or bridge a jumper.
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Dr. Dave rejects the technical habit of blaming users, explains the functional tradeoff that makes perfect protection impossible and admits that even he makes simple mistakes.
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A published lesson about Jobs’s attention to design turns into Evil Steve’s own explanation of why the last flourish can make work exceptional—or why the right extra step may be removing something. Dr. Dave says one lesson he learned from Evil Steve was that white space can matter as much as the text.
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Dr. Dave explains filtering information into what matters to users, recording discoveries while fresh and giving political opinions a separate home. Product examples support this purpose rather than forming a shopping clip.
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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.
