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.
When Doug asks how to recover a lost Mozilla mail profile, Dr. Dave openly says he has not done it before and does not have a ready answer. He promises to investigate and follow up instead of presenting a guess as expertise.
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A listener offers the real-world power-supply experience Dr. Dave had been unable to find during the breaks. Dr. Dave thanks him and explains that talk radio works because many minds and many experiences can contribute to getting more out of technology, then demonstrates that collaboration by continuing to investigate the specifications rather than pretending the answer is settled.
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Dr. Dave warns that listeners should not install every program he mentions because a useful tool for one person may only consume resources for another. Comparing unused software with household clutter, he recommends periodically deciding what is actually used and removing what no longer provides a real benefit.
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Listener Carl writes that Dr. Dave jumps to conclusions about piracy and faulty software. Dr. Dave responds that no warning applies identically to everyone, but his responsibility is to tell listeners when repeated evidence points to a significant trend that may affect them, while still advising people not to change a working installation.
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Greg asks whether a discounted PDA is worth buying. Dr. Dave separates whether the product is good from whether Greg truly needs it, cautions against buying technology to appear capable, suggests a low-risk trial and says the real test after the novelty fades is whether it actually gets used.
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Dr. Dave cannot route a replacement hard brake line until Evil Steve suggests flexible stainless. The instant solution becomes a lesson in questioning assumptions, asking others and valuing a consultant’s fresh perspective.
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Dr. Dave says old technology recommendations must be revisited as the market changes. He also treats a long gap between client visits as good news: it suggests that he fixed the problem and helped the person become a little more independent rather than creating dependence on the consultant.
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Dr. Dave opens the second hour by admitting that listener David caught important TrueCrypt news he had missed. He says he learns from many sources, thanks David for clarifying the question, acknowledges that he should have known and treats the embarrassment as an opportunity to improve the show.
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Dr. Dave recalls warning a store owner after a friend’s earlier loss. This is a personal encounter rather than routine security-product promotion, and the ending admits he does not know the outcome.
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A 3D printer making Christmas cookies reminds Dr. Dave of David Letterman asking Bill Gates whether he had heard of radio after Gates used an online baseball broadcast to demonstrate the Internet. Dr. Dave enjoys invention and creative experiments, but argues that impressive machinery should still be judged practically: sometimes an old tool already does the job.
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A report about an executive threatening a frustrated customer reminds Dr. Dave of the persistence required to resolve his own long AT&T billing dispute and why senior leaders sometimes need direct, public feedback.
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Dr. Dave describes thirty years of daily experience, persistence and going the extra mile to understand why a problem happened rather than claiming special genius.
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Dr. Dave recounts trying to help a less technical friend buy a phone online, waiting eight weeks, receiving only a partial refund and refusing to return the merchandise before the rest of the money arrived. He then turns the personal experience into a lasting consumer lesson: intense demand for a scarce item creates emotional pressure that dishonest sellers can exploit.
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Gmail's experimental Undo Send leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to distinguish an hour of regret from the instant panic after clicking Send, then consider delaying outgoing mail for people who know they can be rushed or emotional.
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After Dr. Dave stacks a product name, VoIP, PDA, Wi-Fi and several acronyms into one sentence, Evil Steve translates the listener experience: it sounds like pings and pops. Dr. Dave accepts the correction because he really does try not to speak in geek language, and the brothers demonstrate why explaining technology plainly takes deliberate effort.
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Dr. Dave says most people value his advice and explains that it comes from hard earned experience and a lot of work rather than brilliance. He then uses the image of locking oneself in a basement to show why complete avoidance may be safe without offering a full life.
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For a second week, Dr. Dave admits that the website and email move he promised still is not done. Evil Steve explains that unexpected work consumed the week, and Dr. Dave identifies the deeper problem himself: he helps other people until his own work becomes impossible, so he must learn to say no even when someone is in a total jam.
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A supposed lifetime software license that actually meant five years leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to ask why anyone should trust the rest of a product after being misled at the beginning. Evil Steve compares it with a personal gym contract whose lifetime price could be changed, and Dr. Dave asks how people who exploit fine print sleep at night.
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Thomas, age 76, calls after receiving his first laptop and encountering an aggressive program. Dr. Dave gives him a place to start without talking down to him, then meets the caller’s self-deprecating joke with one of his own.
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Evil Steve recounts warning his mother about Facebook, only to hear that she has little worth taking; the brothers gently explain why identity and account misuse can still hurt someone who considers herself an unimportant target.
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Reports of dangerous satellite-navigation errors remind Dr. Dave of driving sister Michele's Chrysler toward Disneyland during construction. He admits the wrong turn may have been his fault, credits the same system with finding the route again and uses the story to reinforce that no technology deserves one hundred percent reliance.
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Drawing on recent recovery work, Dr. Dave explains that Windows failures, enclosures, cables and inadequate power can masquerade as dead drives, and warns against paying for a recovery before determining what actually failed.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve ask how photographs, writing, recipes and family history can survive when CDs and other digital media deteriorate, then compare digital loss with damage to paper and recommend making renewed copies over time.
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Dr. Dave says he understands why computers intimidate people, compares that fear to his own reaction to math and returns to his principle that technology problems are ultimately people problems.
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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.
