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 recounts a painful annual update to costly construction accounting software. After several good years, the installation failed because the vendor admitted it had not considered the data structure of customers who had used the product since 2000, leaving clients to pay for support fixing the vendor’s own mistake.
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Dr. Dave tells laptop buyers to think beyond the initial specifications and price. If a battery cannot be replaced safely or without voiding a warranty, the later service cost—or replacement of the entire machine—belongs in the purchase decision from the start.
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When a warranty replacement phone develops exactly the same audio failure, Dr. Dave looks beyond the failed handset and traces the likely cause to the original charger that the replacement process never included.
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Dr. Dave is surprised when Cablevision offers an Internet-and-antenna package that acknowledges customers are leaving traditional cable. People will do what they are going to do, he says; a business can fight them or turn the change into an opportunity and get on top of the wave instead of being drowned by it.
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Introducing Netgear's David Henry, Dr. Dave explains a rule he and Evil Steve use while consulting and moving through ordinary life: whenever a product or idea makes them say wow or that is interesting, they write it down and contact the company about bringing someone onto the show.
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Criticism of a Symantec interview prompts Dr. Dave to explain how he prepares guests. He discusses humor, difficult questions and why speaking with a substitute he had not prepared left him uncomfortable.
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Dr. Dave warns listeners about a computer seller using favorable press quotations from organizations that had never reviewed its machines, concluding that fabricated endorsements make the company untrustworthy.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve preserve one of the show’s recurring practical features by explaining Control-C, Control-X and Control-V, including why keyboard commands can still work when an application omits the expected right-click action.
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Comparing Ubuntu with a frustrating experiment several years earlier, Dr. Dave says desktop Linux had reached a point where the remaining work could be worth the reward for technically inclined users even though it was not yet his choice for an average user.
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Evil Steve compares the original Windows Longhorn promise with an extravagant auto show prototype that loses ambitious features on the way to production. Dr. Dave agrees, explains that WinFS proved too complex for the release and says he will wait for real post-launch evidence before changing his cautious recommendation.
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Sandy worries that a Windows name has made Hotmail less safe on her Mac. Dr. Dave explains that Apple's smaller profile can reduce attention without creating immunity, recalls an advertisement claiming freedom from PC viruses and warns that professional criminals care about valuable identities and bank accounts, not platform loyalties.
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Dr. Dave spends the better part of two days persuading software from 1986 to produce exact output through a much newer printer. The work is frustrating but satisfying, and his old experience teaching Lotus 1 2 3 lets him reconstruct knowledge that a modern technician might never have learned.
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Explaining how easily a partly disassembled laptop can break, Dr. Dave describes laying sheets of paper on his bench in the shape of the machine. He tapes each removed screw to the matching position and labels additional layers, creating a simple physical map that makes careful reassembly possible.
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Nine days before Vista’s consumer release, Dr. Dave is not declaring the operating system bad; he is warning that video, printer and scanner drivers may not be ready. He urges listeners who still plan to upgrade to run Microsoft’s advisor and act on every incompatibility it reports.
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After demonstrating how compatibility mode can itself become incompatible, Dr. Dave concludes that there is no frustration-free universal browser and that the right choice depends on the sites and needs of the person using it.
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A used music player containing confidential files leads Dr. Dave from secure disposal of failed drives to the deeper warning that data recovered or shared by someone else can spread beyond any practical ability to pull it back.
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Responding to information shared inside a supposedly limited Facebook group, Dr. Dave gives a durable privacy warning: a person can close the opening and stop sharing, but information that already escaped cannot simply be retrieved. His drop-of-oil analogy also acknowledges the uncertainty of whether leaked information will matter later.
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A faulty security update that disabled many Windows computers becomes Dr. Dave’s example that price, popularity and corporate contracts do not automatically make a product better than a free alternative.
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Dr. Dave poses a practical continuity question: if Internet access disappeared for a week, what would happen to a business, personal records and contacts that appear to be on local devices but actually depend on cloud services? He calls the exercise a more rational kind of technology preparedness.
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Firefox and Windows 7 delays lead Dr. Dave to reject pressure for an immediate release. He argues that software should be finished for users rather than pushed out merely to meet impatience, while describing the unusual economic anticipation surrounding Windows 7.
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After an aging-laptop call, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve work through the competing costs instead of pretending there is a simple rule. A small repair costs less today, a newer computer may reduce future risk, and reusing the old drive creates still more costs; their conclusion is candid and useful: it is a tough decision because each option carries a tradeoff.
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After recommending a computer nationwide and to clients, Dr. Dave notices that its video memory cannot be adjusted in the usual way and worries that the value may not be as good as he believed. He keeps testing, works through layers of the manufacturer to reach engineering staff and confirms that a new chipset allocates the memory dynamically before standing behind the recommendation.
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Following the Indian Ocean tsunami, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve direct listeners toward established relief organizations while warning that criminals exploit compassion through fake donation emails. They advise reaching a chosen charity independently instead of following a link in a message.
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After a laptop containing personal information is stolen, Dr. Dave argues that an organization entrusted with sensitive records must prevent unprotected data from being carried on portable hardware. His broader point is that large security programs can still fail when people dismiss simple controls as unsophisticated.
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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.
