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.
Dr. Dave marks the historical shift from vandalism and anti-company mischief toward organized operations with programmers and scanners devoted to finding weaknesses and exploiting them for profit.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave records the arrival of MacDefender as evidence that malicious software was expanding beyond Windows and that no platform’s popularity or architecture made its users permanently exempt from attack.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave explains the discovery that Sony music CDs installed hidden copy protection software that security researchers treated like a rootkit. His earlier struggle to transfer his own MiniDisc recordings becomes evidence for a larger judgment: a company can build excellent hardware and still damage the entire experience with restrictive, badly executed software.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave reacts to the breach of a leading authentication company as a historic warning that even organizations at the top of the security field can be compromised, and that incomplete public information should limit confident conclusions.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave marks the coordinated takedown of the Rustock botnet, explaining how infected personal computers could silently become part of a network responsible for an enormous share of global spam.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave opens a Tech Blog video of Image Metrics' photorealistic character Emily while on air. Both brothers find the fully computer-generated face impressive and frightening: they can imagine a future in which viewers cannot distinguish reality from synthesis, yet in 2008 something still feels subtly wrong.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A study that observed people throughout the day reports that the web had become the dominant workplace medium and ranked second at home. Dr. Dave and Evil Steve are not surprised, but recognize the result as evidence of how quickly the Internet was taking over everyday media use.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Google’s Flash integration prompts Dr. Dave to weigh Adobe’s entrenched position against HTML5, CSS3 and Microsoft Silverlight during a major transition in web technology.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave and Evil Steve react to an early report of a software bot defeating game characters, taking virtual property and selling it for real money. The story leads them to realize that conduct committed entirely inside a game can create real value, victims and consequences outside it.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
With Wi-Fi already common in notebooks, Frank predicts its expansion into phones, gaming systems and consumer electronics. He describes Wi-Fi voice inside homes and offices as complementary to cellular service beyond those places, anticipating connected devices rather than a single winner.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Months before Windows 10 launched, Dr. Dave says its early phone demonstrations suggest Microsoft may finally be finding a practical consistency across phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. He contrasts that promise with Windows 8 and recognizes the value Apple had already shown in making different devices feel familiar.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
At the release-candidate stage, Dr. Dave admits he expected another failure and is impressed that Microsoft instead combined what he valued in XP and Vista while leaving much of the worst behind.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
On Windows’ twenty-fifth anniversary, Dr. Dave remembers early broadcasts cautioning listeners that it was not ready, then traces the turning points of bundled networking, Windows 95, XP, Vista and Windows 7.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Nearly a decade after release, Windows XP still served so many people that Dr. Dave saw Microsoft’s earlier success competing with Windows 7 and argued that abruptly killing support would punish users and damage trust.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave describes building a small Windows XP system that can boot from a USB thumb drive and help resuscitate a computer whose installed operating system has failed. He and Evil Steve extend the idea into a prediction of carrying an entire computer around one’s neck and connecting it to only a screen, keyboard and mouse.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Two days before Microsoft's announced Windows XP sales cutoff, Dr. Dave explains the remaining manufacturer downgrade route and the market he expects to form around unsold copies. More importantly, he separates the normal effort of learning a new interface from the compatibility, performance and design objections that made him oppose Vista.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
In early 2012, Dr. Dave is astonished that Windows XP still appears to lead Windows 7, Vista, Mac OS and Linux after roughly eleven years. The period numbers capture the unusually long life of a major operating system and his equally striking observation that Apple’s influence far exceeded its desktop share.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Before the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, Dr. Dave describes a pad that can charge several phones, music players, cameras or laptops simply by touching its surface. Evil Steve first thinks it must be a joke, then they work through what wireless power actually means and whether convenience alone can justify the unknown price.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
News that Microsoft is allowing the Zune name to fade leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to a broader prediction that overlapping phones, music players, readers and computers will have to merge or be pruned into fewer devices.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave is uncertain whether the first Zune will be polished but sees wireless music sharing as its most compelling difference. He contrasts Microsoft’s approach with Apple’s tightly controlled iPod and iTunes ecosystem and waits to see whether the Christmas launch will happen.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Soon after launch, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve discuss reports that Microsoft’s Zune had not entered the top ten music players and how difficult it would be to challenge the iPod. Dr. Dave notes that Microsoft often improves slowly through repeated releases and predicts Zune will reach the top five by the end of 2007.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave begins the show by plainly acknowledging that his prediction against a video iPod was wrong, then later examines the device Apple actually announced. He still believes his concerns about screen size and usefulness were valid, preserving both the correction and his original reasoning rather than quietly changing the record.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
John Gay spends a supposed sabbatical exploring collaborative applications and adds video mainly to support communication between users. The experiment becomes Flash video, and Mike explains how an already distributed player, broadband, Google Video, YouTube and MySpace helped make embedded web video ordinary.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
During Chrome's first beta week and Google's tenth anniversary, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve confront a browser with almost no visible controls. Dr. Dave admires the courage and clarity of the radically simple design but thinks it has gone too far, still prefers established rivals and concludes that Chrome is fast and promising but not ready for prime time.
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.
