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.
Before explaining a complicated email setup, Dr. Dave admits that long experience can make him forget what he already knows and gloss over the complete mental picture a beginner needs.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Evil Steve reports trying Facebook’s new-device alert, and Dr. Dave explains that a platform can be technically sophisticated yet still miss the practical reality of tired, distracted people facing deceptive links and requests.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Looking at Google’s repeated social-network attempts, Dr. Dave admires the willingness to end a failed product, move on and try again instead of assuming that a capable company must launch something perfect every time.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Reflecting on a troublesome firewall release, Dr. Dave says that nearly any program works for someone and fails for someone else. His job is to determine the degree and scale of a problem without unfairly blaming either the people using the software or the people who built it.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave explains how fraudulent security warnings exploit a person's desire to do the right thing and turn fear into an installation of the actual threat. He cautions against panic-driven overprotection and says using a computer carries a basic responsibility to investigate software before trusting it.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave explains that online scams exploit ordinary curiosity and fear, and argues for a practical middle ground between panic and carelessness.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave and Nick Davies discuss the real production cost of exchanging work with clients and printers that require different formats. Davies argues that ordinary users should not need to understand those formats at all, framing compatibility as an industry problem that software makers should solve.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave rejects the idea that openness doomed Google Glass because it exposed too many defects. In a research project, he would rather find flaws after two months than two years: bring problems into the open, embrace them and argue about solutions instead of whether anyone is allowed to acknowledge the problem.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave admits that most Consumer Electronics Show hype irritates him and takes responsibility for that response, then defines the real editorial work as finding the few ideas with potential to change communication and daily life.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave challenges shoppers who demand Bluetooth without knowing what they want it to do and refuses to confuse attractive features with useful work. Technology should perform its essential job, help people finish what needs doing and then free them to go outside and experience life.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After Bill Gates acknowledges reliability problems, Dr. Dave argues that artificial intelligence and speech recognition are less useful when ordinary computers still lock up or become unusable.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave connects economic anxiety with the show's practical mission: help people regain control of frustrating technology without assuming that cost proves quality. He argues that carefully chosen free tools can protect data and manage computers better than expensive subscriptions, then defines Computer Talk as getting the most from technology despite its frustrations.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Looking at the Slingbox, Dr. Dave says he normally values function over form and distrusts products designed merely to look hip. He nevertheless appreciates a design that comes close to excess yet finds the right balance between usefulness, uniqueness and appearance.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
An expired business domain and apparently incorrect DNS records leave Dr. Dave translating between a provider and its customer. The hardest part is getting everyone to check their own work before saying the fault belongs elsewhere.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After listing the growing burden of computer protection, Dr. Dave says irritation does not change the situation and that effective computing begins by accepting reality and using the available tools.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A client struggles with unfamiliar computers and concludes she must be stupid. Dr. Dave firmly disagrees: learning takes time, and recommendations need to fit the person, not just the expert's favorite product.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave defends the counterintuitive discipline of producing exactly the performance the job requires. A screen need not consume twice the energy for detail the eye cannot use, just as a race car should contain no unnecessary ounce; maximum usefulness can mean the least weight, heat, energy and cost that safely accomplish the purpose.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave reduces his technology-evaluation philosophy to three requirements: a product must be good at its job, safe enough that success does not come with unacceptable risk and understandable enough that ordinary people can obtain good results from sensible defaults and a simple interface.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Even while criticizing Google’s press relations, Dr. Dave admires the company for resisting the industry’s drift toward gaudy complexity and making search and Chrome appealing through ruthless simplicity.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave explains that even excellent customer-management software is only a database and becomes terrible when a business fails to define the processes and maintain the information behind it. An anonymous client's streamlined server change reveals years of neglected data, and Dr. Dave concludes that technology and glitz do not solve the underlying problem; without disciplined work, they only produce confusion and chaos faster.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
When Evil Steve asks about the next week's guests, Dr. Dave explains how he searches: he wants something genuinely interesting, likely to have a practical effect on listeners and not already being repeated by an industry press he considers sheep-like. The answer preserves the editorial purpose behind the show's interviews.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After hearing the e-ink and access arguments, Dr. Dave acknowledges what he now understands but refuses a final verdict from discussion alone; he says the only fair way to decide is to get a Kindle into his hands and use it.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
While a guest describes simplifying technical work, Dr. Dave offers the program's own motto: helping real people use real computers in the real world. The joking attempt to license the phrase gives way to Dr. Dave's praise for simplicity and a user-friendly interface.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Reading Woot’s unusually blunt description of what it would and would not do for customers, Dr. Dave says he can accept strict limitations when they are stated clearly before a purchase. What frustrates him more is a company that repeatedly promises service and then provides none.
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.
