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.
562 clips, strongest first.
Dr. Dave anticipates Netflix and internet delivery changing cable television toward programs chosen individually and watched on demand, while his Christmas-special memories explain why scheduled viewing still felt emotionally different to his generation.
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A major internet-service launch, unlike the obscure service promotions Dr. Dave's son Nick excluded. The hosts react to a gigabyte mailbox and weigh contextual advertising against privacy. Preserve the claim that humans are not reading mail and Dr. Dave’s invitation to make an informed choice.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve examine the uneasy 2007 cooperation between Microsoft and Novell. Dr. Dave argues that improving interoperability could help legitimize Linux while remaining skeptical that it was ready for ordinary home users.
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As Mt. Gox collapses, Dr. Dave treats missing Bitcoin as a serious early test for virtual currency. He repeatedly separates what is known from his speculation, argues that loss and attack are risks no new system can erase and still sees value in voluntary alternatives that give individuals more economic autonomy.
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Using the difficult transition to USB 3 as an example, Dr. Dave observes that technological advances demand increasing effort and cost for smaller gains as engineers push farther toward the edge.
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A discussion about Palm's future becomes a question about respecting loyal users. Dr. Dave asks what it takes to preserve the applications people have built their working lives around when a platform changes.
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Using Palm WebOS and the old Betamax-versus-VHS example, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve argue that even a technically excellent product can lose when its maker fails to communicate, promote and sustain it.
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Dr. Dave describes technology designed to identify and deprioritize Internet telephone traffic and worries that established telephone companies will protect their business by making a new competitor unusable. He frames the problem as a recurring obstacle for new technologies when companies aggressively defend their territory instead of competing on the service itself.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve react to the 3G iPhone's lower purchase price, faster network and more open developer model. They expect enormous demand but use first-generation owners' buyer's remorse to restate a rule: the first version costs more and offers less, while early adopters effectively finance the affordable bleeding edge for everyone who waits.
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After switching from a Palm Pre to Android, Evil Steve and Dr. Dave remember how quickly WebOS handled ordinary tasks. The comparison leads Dr. Dave to a broader technology-history lesson: design quality is only one of many forces that decide whether a platform survives.
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A battery question becomes a candid 2008 assessment of the forthcoming Volt. Dr. Dave doubts that it will meet every hope but argues that technological progress needs products and companies willing to take intermediate steps.
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A major Apple release leads Dr. Dave to balance admiration for the company’s design and control with criticism of proprietary choices that limited compatibility and market reach.
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Dr. Dave remembers when specialized computer knowledge belonged mainly to experts who gathered together or invested enormous time. He sees the Internet as having opened much of that information to the average person, even while acknowledging that difficult areas of knowledge remain.
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Dr. Dave explains how holding and using an iPod could persuade a buyer, then traces the changing scroll-wheel designs and the role of Synaptics.
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A live counter showing the remaining IPv4 address pool lets Dr. Dave explain why IPv6 mattered, while Evil Steve turns the estimated exhaustion date into Y2K, Mayan-calendar and political jokes.
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At the arrival of Kindle 2, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve acknowledge the convenience and lower book-distribution costs but resist carrying a separate gadget for every task, arguing for convergence and time away from devices to live one's life.
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Major portable-music history rather than an obscure deal: the reported decades-long Sony patent dispute and the brothers asking whether the struggle was worth it. The contemporary story links the Walkman era to the iPod.
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Dr. Dave looks beyond the Moto X's ordinary headline processor and values the thoughtful way its work is divided among specialized processors. Instead of copying the iPhone, he says, the phone asks what people actually need to do, including making calls and being productive, and reminds him of Palm's earlier effort to optimize technology around its user.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve compare the dramatic shift from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 with the quieter Vista launch. Dr. Dave predicts that operating systems have become so bloated that the next revolutionary step will eventually have to move toward simplicity.
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The USB 3.0 announcement leads the brothers from headline speed claims to a broader observation: once people gain storage and bandwidth, new uses quickly make yesterday's abundance feel insufficient.
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Dr. Dave considers why Vista feels slower than XP despite newer hardware. Evil Steve's comparison to a flying car that cannot fly sums up their frustration with present-day problems justified by promises about the future.
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Before Windows Vista launched, Dr. Dave says he has been skeptical that it offers a compelling difference but hints that a Microsoft gathering has begun to change his mind. Even with promising features under nondisclosure, he still advises waiting after release for early problems to emerge.
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Evil Steve wants a PDA, laptop, phone and camera together; Dr. Dave counters that convergence can compromise individual functions. A meaningful pre-smartphone-era conversation rather than a particular PDA deal.
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At the early 4G rollout, Dr. Dave distinguishes superior specifications from inconsistent implementation and warns that rushing to the new network could also leave mature 3G service neglected.
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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.
