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.
ON AIR
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.
Consulting Philosophy
1414 clips, strongest first.
Honesty before technology hype · Proposed air date:
Looking at CES, 4K televisions and Windows 8, Dr. Dave questions a technology culture organized around constant consumption and entertainment rather than usefulness and contribution. He compares the excitement with the dot-com bubble, admits that his skepticism can make him feel like the lone person missing something and concludes that he cannot lie to listeners merely because vendors and journalists need people to keep buying.
How does an ordinary person keep up? · Proposed air date:
During a home-office service visit, Dr. Dave works through ordinary cleanup and security tasks and wonders how anyone who does not do this for a living could keep up. Evil Steve supplies the practical answer: they call someone like Dr. Dave.
How interface habits take hold · Proposed air date:
Facebook and Office redesigns remind Dr. Dave how deeply repeated actions become automatic. He traces the same resistance from WordStar through WordPerfect to Word and describes letting a real client choose a painful Office upgrade only after weighing the lost disc and time required.
A report about online tax files exposed to another customer leads Dr. Dave to question the emerging software-as-a-service model. Even while acknowledging useful online tools, he says he wants complete control of his own data.
If in doubt, do not follow the link · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave turns “if in doubt, don’t” into a simple habit: an unexpected financial email should not decide where the user goes next; open a browser independently and navigate to the known institution instead.
Rather than spending a person's life trying to identify every suspicious message, Dr. Dave offers a simpler rule: if in doubt, do not click or buy through it. If the offer is genuinely wanted, open a browser and go directly to the known company instead.
If it is not significantly better · Proposed air date:
Asked about another maintenance utility, Dr. Dave says he is not interested unless it does something significantly better than the free tools he already uses. Novelty alone is not enough to earn a place in his toolkit.
Although Dr. Dave strongly prefers keeping control of his own data, he states the more important rule: if an Internet-based system truly works for a person, using it is rational; following a slogan because someone says everyone belongs in the cloud is not.
If they only tell you what is wonderful · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave says part of his job is testing competing browsers rather than attaching himself to one. His broader rule is that every choice has advantages and disadvantages, and an expert who discusses only what is wonderful has left out half the story.
Immerse yourself before you assess it · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave explains that installing a system is not enough for a fair review: he removes Windows from his daily laptop and asks whether Linux can support his real personal and business life. He then tests the same idea on the family computer, accepts one distribution’s driver trouble and chooses the alternative that lets the children handle games, music and homework.
Intermittent does not always mean software · Proposed air date:
A hard drive that failed only sometimes initially looked like a software problem, but testing revealed that it was overheating. Dr. Dave uses the case to show how a familiar diagnostic rule can become a misleading assumption.
Internet boom companies with nothing there · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave says Lenovo news reminds him of the Internet boom, when a few companies such as eBay, PayPal and Amazon created lasting value while many celebrated ventures seemed empty. The short reflection captures his instinct to resist excitement until a technology or business proves there is something real underneath it.
It isn't just what you do, but how you do it · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave distinguishes a feature that technically exists from one that works well in real life. He says the implementation and hidden pitfalls make all the difference, and that he goes to great lengths to warn listeners when a theoretically correct answer is actually unworkable.
Facebook’s announced communications vision has not yet become a product, so Dr. Dave refuses both declarations that it will transform the world and claims that it is worthless, asking what exactly anyone is praising or condemning before release.
Judge the device by the real-world job · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave admires the MacBook Air’s design but evaluates it by role: as an ultraportable it may delight, while as a replacement for a full-powered laptop it may disappoint regardless of the logo.
After Microsoft’s hosted services fail, Dr. Dave applies his cloud experiment to business continuity: no provider is infallible, so preserve another way to reach email, data or customers instead of placing every essential service in one basket.
Keep local access while using the cloud · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave acknowledges the cloud's effortless cross-device convenience but asks what happens when a provider or the Internet becomes unavailable. His practical response is not to reject online services: he keeps data usable locally while allowing services to synchronize it, so an outage may interrupt syncing without taking away the underlying information.
Keep one backup local and one off-site · Proposed air date:
Using the Sidekick outage as a warning, Dr. Dave gives a simple preservation rule that does not depend on trusting any single device, company or location.
Keep the raw original and work from a copy · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave explains that owning excellent tools does not make someone an artist, then gives a preservation rule that reaches far beyond photo editing. Keep the raw original untouched, make a copy under a different filename and preserve something to fall back on if an edit goes wrong.
Keeping control on your own computer · Proposed air date:
Discussing an early cloud antivirus, Dr. Dave says internet processing is often slow and prefers local work unless a specific remote benefit justifies giving up direct control; Evil Steve accurately teases him as a control freak.
Know what an unknown form does with your name · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave explains that vague home-business websites may reveal almost nothing about the opportunity because their real purpose is to collect a person’s contact information and sell the lead to an unknown third party. His central warning is to understand what one is authorizing before submitting the form.
Knowing more than you know can destroy the evidence · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave admits he sometimes overestimates his own ability and uses opened hard drives as the clearest warning: acting beyond one’s knowledge can turn a recoverable problem into lost evidence.
Dr. Dave says the most useful buying advice is sometimes not what to purchase but what to avoid. His warning that conventional wisdom can be foolish captures the skeptical consumer perspective that shaped the show without depending on one specific recommendation.
Learning from the failures you can measure · Proposed air date:
Dr. Dave compares Google’s hard-drive and memory findings with his own repair experience and explains how new evidence would change what he checks during future troubleshooting.
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.
