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 and Evil Steve recount a reported software failure that affected F-22 navigation and communications while the aircraft crossed the International Date Line. Their jokes about an i22 Raptor carry the larger point that an enormous price tag cannot eliminate software mistakes.
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A listener asks how to move a vinyl record to CD. Dr. Dave describes the office setup he and Evil Steve use to route a turntable, cassette deck, CD player and telephone through a mixer, adjust levels and record the source on a computer before creating a disc.
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A leaked WGN style memo lets Dr. Dave and Evil Steve reflect on grammar, management and the business strain facing radio, before birds outside the bunker puncture the seriousness.
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The brothers react to Ford adding remote-PC access through Sync with equal parts amazement and alarm, turning the announcement into a warning that impressive connectivity still has to respect attention and driving safety.
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Trying to illustrate the difficulty of choosing computer hardware, Dr. Dave asks Evil Steve how many mainstream processors are on the market. Evil Steve guesses fifteen; the reported answer is 628. Dr. Dave says the field is impossible even for experts to keep straight, then threatens to read the entire table on next week's show.
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Dr. Dave describes a very bright eighty-six-year-old retired professional receiving an instruction to change an outgoing-email port with no reason to understand the vocabulary. He argues that companies should plainly admit when a task is not for a novice and offer trusted help, because intimidating customers into pretending they understand only makes them feel stupid and creates larger problems.
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Dr. Dave admires the rigidity and large gesture trackpad of Apple's newly milled aluminum notebooks, then immediately tests the excitement against reflective screens, a sharp edge and the practical question of whether a satisfied owner needs an incremental upgrade.
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When early users report slow service, Dr. Dave contacts the company rather than repeating the offer uncritically. He values the representative’s invitation to read unedited public criticism, explains the capacity problem and advises waiting before making a confident judgment.
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Kevin Mitnick's reported account breach lets Dr. Dave explain that attackers often bypass sophisticated systems by persuading a person to disclose or reset access. A famous target becomes his benchmark for whether ordinary customers can trust the process.
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After Evil Steve receives a phishing lure that appears to come from a known contact, Dr. Dave explains that impersonating a friend or family member is exactly what makes the attack effective. His warning is direct: a message does not become trustworthy simply because the sender name is familiar.
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Dr. Dave reconstructs the 2008 Sarah Palin Yahoo email breach as a human failure rather than an advanced technical attack. A public email address, biographical facts and an answerable password-recovery question were enough to reset the account, showing how information that seems harmless can become the key to a targeted attack.
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Dr. Dave laughs at the wave of camera flashes visible across a football stadium because small built in flashes cannot illuminate distant action. He and Evil Steve mix practical advice about turning off the flash or using it to fill nearby shadows with jokes about Dr. Dave’s reflective bald head.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve explain that the weekly website link is broken because they were rushing, then joke that unlike other shows they cannot blame an unreachable webmaster. Their candid promise to fix it back at the bunker captures the hands-on work behind both the show and the original site.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve discuss reported Microsoft localization mistakes involving maps, game audio and translation, illustrating how a few overlooked details can have consequences far beyond the software itself.
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Paul Zway attempts to call from Bocas del Toro over wireless during Expedition 08, a live test of whether modern tools can support an international business from a Land Cruiser. The echoing connection is unusable, so Dr. Dave ends the call and cheerfully declares the failure itself an honest result: they use technology as people really use it instead of arranging a perfect demonstration.
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Dean describes refurbishing an older computer as a clean spare tire for essential tasks whenever he suspects the primary machine may be infected, and Dr. Dave recognizes it as a practical reuse of hardware that no longer needs to be the fastest machine.
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Ray identifies himself as a blind computer user and describes searching for security software he can operate with a screen reader. His first-person testing reveals which scanning interface is accessible and gives Dr. Dave useful evidence about a layered infection.
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Responding to caller Mark's Fedora experiment, Dr. Dave says no operating system is perfect and remembers the fun of reviving a ten- or twelve-year-old Gateway with Linux until it ran like a hot rod. The moment combines caller warmth, practical thrift and Dr. Dave's enjoyment of making old technology useful again.
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Caller Tom asks whether rapidly increasing megapixel counts will make his present camera obsolete for enormous banner prints. Drawing on his own photography experience, Dr. Dave explains that a lower resolution camera can produce a better image when its sensor, lens and overall design are superior, then clarifies how the image sensor functions for listeners.
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Caller Jeff reports Facebook deleting a prominent blogger's account after automated contact extraction. Dr. Dave and Evil Steve use the incident to warn that data entrusted to a social site or online backup is not necessarily under the user's control, just as paying for a domain usually buys a right to use it rather than permanent ownership; the Internet's rules still resemble the Wild West.
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A caller asks how to record live-streamed audio on a PC. Dr. Dave promises a careful follow-up rather than rushing at the break and rejects predictions that easier recording will destroy conventional radio.
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An email security update blocks features a caller wants to use. Dr. Dave describes the dilemma: companies are criticized both for leaving risks open and for restricting the features people enjoy.
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When Bob is told simply to search, he asks what that actually means. Dr. Dave slows the process down to the spaces between “White Christmas” and “Drifters,” presses search and walks through the kinds of results instead of assuming the caller already understands the web.
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Mark reports running the Windows 7 beta on an iMac, and Dr. Dave describes putting it on an old underpowered laptop, deliberately feeding it unsuitable drivers and spending up to 36 hours fiddling simply to learn whether it will break.
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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.
