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.
Dr. Dave objects to manufacturers placing advertising software on brand-new computers and says a user’s digital desktop is as personal and private as a desk in an office.
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Dr. Dave asks a client what success on social media would actually look like. Building trust and staying in touch can matter even when a post cannot be linked to a sale.
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Dr. Dave describes repairing a working DJ’s broken audio jack with a reinforced pigtail and using the show break to arrange an improvement.
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William has no backup and hears a terrible grinding noise from his laptop. Dr. Dave explains why the sound changes the risk calculation, distinguishes a possible fan or optical-drive noise from physical drive damage and repeatedly puts preservation ahead of trial-and-error troubleshooting.
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Annette methodically describes a difficult freezing computer. Dr. Dave praises her work, proposes possibilities and remains explicit that neither of them can know whether the cause is malware, disk, memory, motherboard, temperature or something else without further testing.
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Caller Rick catches a failing drive early and asks whether mirroring should supplement backups. Dr. Dave distinguishes availability from independent recovery copies, warns that errors can propagate and emphasizes a separate off-site copy while agreeing that automation counters human delay.
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Caller Victor asks why he cannot buy only a broadband connection and keep his existing Internet services. Dr. Dave separates engineering from sales structure: there is no technical barrier, but providers package the connection and service together, so the practical decision is to compare the full value rather than mistake a business rule for a technical requirement.
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A caller asks why increasingly complicated products do not include simple instructional media. Dr. Dave answers with a real support failure in which one undocumented uppercase and lowercase difference disabled expensive licenses, arguing that a two cent printed note could have prevented the disruption.
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Intermittent bad memory corrupts Windows, and after the rebuild every audio driver still crashes the machine. Dr. Dave describes the repeated tests and reboots that turn an apparently simple problem into a full-day professional nightmare.
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Claire asks the practical question many buyers faced in 2013: could a new Windows 8 laptop simply be changed back to Windows 7? Dr. Dave explains why firmware, manufacturer support and model-specific drivers made the answer depend on the exact computer, then offers ways to research the choice without pretending a salesperson will necessarily know.
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After helping a caller choose a photography laptop, Dr. Dave strips the decision down to actual use. Moving a computer around the house and carrying it in a briefcase every day are different kinds of portability, so an honest account of one's habits should determine the size and weight.
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A caller worries that an automatic update could install the wrong driver and disable working hardware. Dr. Dave agrees and explains why his recommendations are conservative: the chosen utilities may tweak less than aggressive alternatives, but they are designed not to break the system, because no update process is perfect.
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Claire's first-laptop question and Kyle's performance comparison lead Dr. Dave to the same durable rule: be honest about what the person will actually do, then choose the machine, instead of buying specifications and inventing a purpose afterward.
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Caller Sean worries that he erased an old Time Machine drive and now wants its contents back. Dr. Dave carefully distinguishes a quick format or repartition from overwriting an entire drive, promises to follow up after the show and uses another recovery job to explain why increasingly dense drives had become harder and more expensive to recover.
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Caller Tom asks why a printer driver can already be in use before it is installed. Dr. Dave openly says he does not know which uninstaller the caller’s setup uses, explains that error messages are often only guesses and works through shared files and safe mode as possible causes rather than pretending to know the answer.
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Dr. Dave explains why an unsolicited caller claiming to know a computer is slow can sound convincing: most computers are slow, so the guess often lands. Microsoft does not cold-call to repair customers' machines, and politeness is not owed to someone trying to gain access; hang up, then contact a trusted professional independently if the computer truly needs help.
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A caller whose computer no longer starts after a software installation receives patient troubleshooting, a possible recovery path and an offer to call Dr. Dave’s office, followed by a useful history of recovery partitions and installation discs.
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After helping caller John locate a failed update, Dr. Dave does not promise an easy answer. He says the problem may be daunting even for an expert, encourages John to try the next step and invites him to call back if he gets stuck.
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Asked whether Macs are simply better, Dr. Dave resists a yes-or-no answer. He praises their ease of use while discussing their flaws and reminding listeners that Apple products are made by fallible people too.
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Regular caller Mark reconnects with the brothers over Cowboys and Redskins football, brings his own browser testing to the show and asks how to protect his wife when she uses public Wi-Fi before an affectionate Facebook-photo signoff.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve praise Raj and Pravina at their UPS Store as people who are both good at their work and genuinely kind. A small act of calling Evil Steve about a delivery saves Dr. Dave an unnecessary trip back to the office and becomes a concise illustration of attentive service.
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A caller has valuable compressed data on an old Bernoulli cartridge after the original computer fails. Dr. Dave recommends finding compatible period hardware, copying the files to a modern optical medium and then explains how the drive’s head rode on a thin cushion of air and why the system carried Daniel Bernoulli’s name.
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Dr. Dave is explicit that he is not an attorney and does not have a concrete answer to a caller's fair-use question. After the break he supplies a built-in editing option and a social-media research center guide instead of pretending certainty.
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Dr. Dave recounts a polite but fruitless call about years of poor cellular service in Tucson. The representative promises to submit the problem but offers no confirmation or return contact, finally telling Dr. Dave that he will know it was fixed when the service improves, an answer that captures his frustration with support that cannot close the loop.
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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.
