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 looks back at the enormous excitement surrounding Bluetooth in 1999 and measures it against years of unreliable real world connections. As Zigbee becomes the next celebrated wireless standard, he argues that consumers do not care which protocol controls a device; they care whether the result works dependably.
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An Apple advertisement implying that Mac users need not worry about malicious software troubles Dr. Dave because it could make people stop protecting themselves. He praises Apple’s products, operating system, engineering and marketing, then states that he is not anti-Apple but anti-lie and wants the company to describe its lower risk without claiming immunity.
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Dr. Dave acknowledges the argument for quietly fixing undisclosed vulnerabilities but concludes that incomplete bulletins can prevent customers from understanding a patch’s real importance and risk.
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A caller wants to replace Vista with XP without ruining a new laptop. Dr. Dave stresses exact model and driver preparation, then states the larger rule plainly: there is no one-hundred-percent guarantee, but doing one hundred percent of the preparation under your control creates a reasonable chance of success.
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A caller assumes costly solid-state storage will solve recurring data corruption. Dr. Dave separates memory, motherboard, hard-drive and software causes and recommends testing the basic components before deciding what to replace. The enduring point is diagnosis before expense.
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A smartphone that repeatedly freezes at the moment Dr. Dave needs it leads to a simple evaluation: ask how the technology is actually adding to one's quality of life. Marketing, specifications and intended behavior matter less than reality, so expectations and plans should be based on what the tool reliably does.
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Remembering his first experiences with CorelDRAW, Dr. Dave asks Corel executive Nick Davies how powerful graphics tools can remain approachable. The goal is software people can use without an expert's education.
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Dr. Dave insists that a historic discovery is useful only when it reaches the person behind the keyboard. Evil Steve tells listeners that he follows the guest's website during the live broadcast; browsing while producing sometimes makes him miss a cue, but he keeps doing it because that is how he learns.
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Admiring the iPod Touch interface does not make Dr. Dave want another device. He explains that he does not want to carry a phone, PDA, music player and notebook separately; he prefers efficient integration, while still choosing the less glamorous Palm Treo because its business tools better fit his daily work.
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Discussing an early Windows 7 service-pack rumor, Dr. Dave argues that Microsoft needed to learn from Vista by replacing grand promises with smaller, more realistic and timely improvements.
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Responding to Apple advertising that suggested Mac users did not need to worry about malicious software, Dr. Dave describes a serious reported operating-system vulnerability and predicts that criminals will increasingly target Macs as their audience grows. He closes by praising the machines while reminding listeners that they are still built on Earth by humans.
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Bank of America’s early personalized SiteKey system leads the brothers to ask whether attackers could eventually copy even that protection. Dr. Dave says nothing is perfect, so the practical goal is to reduce risk and make an attack difficult enough that criminals move on.
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A caller reveals that he paid twice for one of Dr. Dave’s products and had trouble reaching the office. Dr. Dave explains how the original license should have worked, apologizes for the missed contact and promises to address the duplicate purchase.
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Dr. Dave argues that a memorable technology slogan still has to tell the truth, distinguishing a lower risk from an impossible risk and valuing accurate language even when it is less glib.
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After confronting the limits of expertise and the possibility that even a careful user can be compromised, Dr. Dave refuses both complacency and absolute promises. He recommends rational precautions, skepticism and strong passwords, while accepting that people must still use some service and can only reduce rather than eliminate risk.
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Dr. Dave praises a simple YouTube design change that moved comments away from the first view of a video. He says it does not eliminate coarse speech, but it stops every visitor from being immediately bombarded and restores a little polish to the experience.
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A 2010 article revives batch files, reminding Dr. Dave how much could be accomplished with them in DOS and leading both brothers to value old, unfashionable methods when they still produce results.
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Dr. Dave argues that Jobs’s large presentation type was possible because each slide carried only one or two or three major ideas. The speaker supplied depth and context, while a few simple words kept the central thought visible.
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X-Drive's uncertain future becomes a warning about depending on online-only storage and subscription software. Dr. Dave remembers buyers assuming the enormous Texas Instruments would support its home computer longer than Commodore, only to see the reverse, and says a remote service can change, fail or disappear while leaving the customer less flexible and less autonomous.
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After two Twitter attacks, Dr. Dave argues that social networks need openness to function but that enormous membership brings a corresponding duty to treat security professionally rather than leaving it secondary to sharing.
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The Anti-Spyware Coalition discussion turns to software that disclosed intrusive behavior deep inside a license agreement. Dr. Dave and Evil Steve distinguish technical permission from honest communication when a company relies on fine print it expects users not to read.
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Discussing Google’s early Web Accelerator, Dr. Dave accepts that large stores of browsing data deserve scrutiny and that breaches are possible. At the same time, he distinguishes possibility from likelihood instead of treating every concern as proof of an immediate danger.
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Google’s plan for encrypted searches and its collection of Wi-Fi data lead Dr. Dave to compare privacy choices with investment risk: too little protection is dangerous, but total privacy can make the internet unusable.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve explain how familiar lottery, auction, identity theft and benefits scams were moving onto the Internet and increasingly targeting older people. Their practical warning is to treat unsolicited money requests as a red flag and independently check an extraordinary offer before acting.
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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.
