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.
A professional printer who buys ink by the gallon sees savings differently from a family or home office. Dr. Dave reduces the decision to effort versus reward and asks how much inconvenience is worth accepting for a particular benefit, a compact example of tailoring advice to the person rather than the product.
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A drive fails in one of Dr. Dave’s recovery systems, placing him in the ironic position of performing data recovery on a data recovery computer. He goes to replace the failed drive so active recoveries can resume.
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A study of cartridge cost and unused ink makes Dr. Dave openly revisit his opposition to third-party refills. He thinks through how falling hardware prices change the risk calculation and, with Evil Steve, follows the logic to the absurd image of a disposable “comprinter.”
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A large Google speed claim reminds Dr. Dave of an old consulting rule: promising dramatic improvement can imply that a prospective client has been foolish and may strain credibility before the work even begins.
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Reacting to the first Motorola phone integrated with iTunes, Dr. Dave asks manufacturers to make a cell phone work reliably as a telephone before adding a music player. He and Evil Steve recall repeatedly losing calls while driving through the center of Tucson, realizing they may have passed within shouting distance and joking that megaphones would have worked better.
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Cynthia’s unusable computer leads Dr. Dave to explain safe-mode troubleshooting, changing one thing at a time and why even an experienced consultant cannot promise a five-minute fix. Preserve the full caller context and offer of follow-up help.
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A survey says many customer-service emails were ignored, but Dr. Dave adds that technical delivery failures can look like human neglect. Because sending a message does not prove it arrived, he says he follows an important email with a phone call and sometimes even a fax.
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Dr. Dave warns that moving a familiar service to the cloud may change more than its server location. A consultant should understand a client’s tolerance for disruption without judging it, explain the practical differences and remember that success depends less on choosing “cloud” or “no cloud” than on how the move is carried out.
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Dr. Dave gives the carrier’s representatives full credit for treating him well and correcting each exaggerated bill, while still insisting that having to repeat the same call every month is itself a serious service failure.
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Dr. Dave admits that frustration can make even a bright person report the problem inaccurately, so the first repair step may be to walk away, clear one’s head and return able to observe and follow instructions.
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Dr. Dave explains that even an expensive high performance computer has limits when hundreds of programs load into memory. He compares the overloaded machine to a car covered in fins, wings, tint and chrome, then advises taking the extra chrome and feelers off the computer for a streamlined result.
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After discussing the new show open, Dr. Dave returns to the previous week’s failed phone system and accepts his share of responsibility for following incorrect instructions.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve respond directly to listener feedback that the original Truth and Tech Blog links are so small and simple that visitors miss them. They describe the exact red-and-blue text near the date and promise to brainstorm a more pronounced treatment and repeat the links elsewhere on the radio page.
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Dr. Dave notices that his family’s drawing tablets mostly went unused, while Evil Steve explains that real illustrators depend on them and that he still uses his for signatures and free-form work.
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After the previous week’s production sound problem, the ultimate repair turns out to be physically jiggling the equipment, and Dr. Dave marvels that even brand-new gear can demand the oldest troubleshooting technique.
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A woman who has fought an error for months and wants to replace her printer finally lets Dr. Dave look: there are no ink cartridges installed. He uses the story to urge patience, fewer assumptions and a return to basic checks before discarding useful equipment.
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Dr. Dave questions technology reviews that seem to give every tested product a score between roughly 8.4 and 8.7. Evil Steve agrees that a scale should actually be used: if nothing is allowed to be poor or excellent, every product merely becomes “kind of pretty good.”
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Dr. Dave describes business owners asking whether internet complexity has erased technology’s value, then answers with simple safeguards, empathy for frustrated users and his surfing-the-wave metaphor.
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Dr. Dave admits to the Tim Allen urge to push a technology far beyond its intended job, describing a thirty mile Wi-Fi link as a three hundred horsepower dishwasher. He praises Frank for managing expectations and explaining the practical local network role rather than claiming Wi-Fi can do everything.
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When Pat presents an unusual display problem and System Restore failure, Dr. Dave distinguishes his inference from a diagnosis and twice says candidly that he is grasping at straws before suggesting one possible next step.
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Dr. Dave repeatedly says infection is possible rather than certain. Dan then offers a permissions explanation from his own experience, and Dr. Dave thanks him, recognizes it as a valid alternative and prepares to pass the information back to Bob.
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Cynthia asks how to even out television volume and then surprises the hosts by explaining that she listens to the computer show despite not owning a computer. Dr. Dave admits he does not know of the requested device, offers a modest workaround and accepts her challenge to invent one.
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A caller discovers another person’s file on a computer sold as new. Dr. Dave says the oversight may not affect reliability, but a retailer that resells a return owes the customer a genuinely cleaned and honestly represented machine.
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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.
