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154 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago - ★★★★ - 10 ratingsThe Mac Observer: You'll Hear Your Mac News Here From Now On...
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Episodes
Fermilab Cosmologist Dr. Dan Hooper
November 25, 2019 22:39 - 32 minutes - 14.9 MBDr. Dan Hooper is a Senior Scientist and the Head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. He is also a Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin. Dan told me about how his early aspirations as a youth were actually in music. It wasn’t until he took a class as an undergraduate in Relativity that the astrophysics bug bit him. Hard. ...
Former Apple Director of Federal Sales David Sobotta
November 18, 2019 23:58 - 39 minutes - 18.2 MBDavid Sobotta joined Apple in 1984. His career there lasted until July 2004. During that time David went from being an entry-level sales representative based in Halifax, Nova Scotia covering Atlantic Canada to the Reston, Virginia, based director of Apple’s federal sales group. He has gained an intimate knowledge of Apple, its culture and the leadership of Steve Jobs. David tells a story that started with the Apple II, learning the technology, going to work for a mini computer shop in Canad...
Tech Columnist and Author Mike Elgan
November 11, 2019 21:38 - 45 minutes - 21.1 MBMike Elgan writes a popular weekly column for Computerworld, contributes news analysis pieces for Fast Company and SecurityIntelligence and also writes special features, columns, and think pieces for a variety of publications. Mike tells a career story that started in newspaper publishing with QuarkXPress. Soon, he realized that what he loved was not covering local politics but rather the technology of the Mac, networking and printing. That launched his career writing about computer tech. ...
TMO Contributor Kelly Guimont (#8)
November 05, 2019 01:10 - 35 minutes - 16.3 MBKelly Guimont is a long-time podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, the host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, a tech support guru, and a Founding Volunteer of App Camp for Girls. Kelly first appeared here in December, 2015 to tell her career story and has returned many times for interesting discussions. In her 8th appearance, we chat about our favorite TV shows of late. Kelly: Fleabag (Amazon), The Politician (Netflix), and Billions (Showtime). John: Madam...
GRUBBRR CEO Bhavin Asher
October 28, 2019 23:24 - 37 minutes - 17.4 MBBhavin Asher is a technologist and entrepreneur. After graduating college with a computer science degree, he went to work for IBM. Later, Bhavin transitioned to a position at Deloitte as a CRM Strategy Consultant. Deloitte provided a learning environment to understand how successful businesses leverage technology to scale and grow. Most recently, he was a Director and Solutions Architect at Salesforce. Today, Bhavin is the founder and CEO of GRUBBRR. Bhavin tells a career story that well pr...
Former Apple Engineering Director Don Melton
October 21, 2019 23:39 - 43 minutes - 20.3 MBDon Melton is probably best known as the person who started the Safari and WebKit projects at Apple and his rise to Apple Engineering Director of Internet Technologies. These days he’s an aspiring writer, podcaster and recovering programmer. Don walks us through his early career starting with his aspiration to become a comic strip or comic book artist. His artistic talent led to a newspaper job which led to information graphics which led to work with Macs. His tinkering with the Mac reveale...
Productivity Coach Brittany Smith
October 14, 2019 22:46 - 34 minutes - 15.9 MBBrittany Smith is a productivity coach who provides a variety of consulting services through her business, Devise and Conquer, that includes ADD/ADHD coaching, technology coaching, productivity consulting, and more. She is a self-designated “well-rounded geek.” She holds an M.S. degree in Cognitive Neuroscience. In our chat, Brittany told me about her adventures with homemade videos, with a PC, as a youth. Her father was a podiatrist and her mother was a programmer, so there were always com...
Astrophysicist Dr. Brian Keating (#2)
October 08, 2019 00:04 - 38 minutes - 17.9 MBDr. Brian Keating is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. His specialty is cosmology, and he is the father of the original BICEP project (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization). Last year, Brian published a terrific, courageous book about his team’s research, some life lessons, and the challenges of scientific research: Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science...
NASA Chair, Lib. of Congress Dr. Susan Schneider
September 30, 2019 23:49 - 32 minutes - 15 MBDr. Susan Schneider is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at The University of Connecticut. She writes about issues in philosophy, AI, cognitive science and astrobiology. Within philosophy, she works on both the computational nature of the brain and the metaphysical nature of the mind. The topics she has written about most recently include radical brain enhancement, machine intelligence, consciousness, and the nature of persons. Her new book is Artificial You – AI And...
Thriller Novelist Carter Wilson
September 24, 2019 19:55 - 34 minutes - 16.1 MBCarter Wilson is the USA Today and #1 Denver Post bestselling author of six critically acclaimed, standalone psychological thrillers, as well as numerous short stories. He is an ITW Thriller Award finalist, a three-time winner of the Colorado Book Award, and his novels have received multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. His latest novel, The Dead Girl in 2A, was released in July 2019. Carter didn’t plan to become a novelist. It was really quite by a...
Journalist & TMO Contributor Charlotte Henry (#2)
September 16, 2019 20:10 - 33 minutes - 15.3 MBCharlotte is a London-based technical journalist. A self described media junkie, she writes about Apple—and now for the Mac Observer as well. She has also written for City A.M. (London’s daily business tabloid,) Computer Business Review, and the Independent on Sunday. Her new book is: Not Buying It. In this special edition of BGM, Charlotte chats about her reactions to Apple’s September 10 iPhone event. She noted how Apple is in a new balancing act, promoting hardware to sell services—and ...
Former Apple Senior Director Michael Gartenberg (#7)
September 12, 2019 19:57 - 49 minutes - 23 MBMichael Gartenberg spent three years as Apple’s Senior Director of Product Marketing, reporting directly to Senior VP Phil Schiller. In his seventh appearance on Background Mode, Michael and I analyze Apple’s September 10, 2019 iPhone event: “By Innovation Only.” We started with a discussion of the overall content and tenor of the event. Was the scripting more evident than usual? Is the format wearing thin? Why were there no success numbers touted as is customary? In the second segment, we ...
Tidbits Managing Editor Josh Centers (#5)
September 09, 2019 21:12 - 40 minutes - 18.6 MBJosh Centers is the Managing Editor of Tidbits.com and has published many Take Control (TC) books. He’s the author of Take Control of Apple TV and Take Control of Home Automation. He’s been writing the Take Control books for iOS since version 8, and his latest book is Take Control of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13. In his fifth appearance on the show, Josh and I explored his latest article (Aug. 30) at Tidbits that explores a controversial user interface issue in iOS 13. Josh is blunt about Apple’s ...
Astronomer Dr. Clay Sherrod (#2)
September 03, 2019 22:24 - 40 minutes - 18.7 MBDr. Clay Sherrod’s astronomical studies began, soon after his Ph.D. work, in 1970 with the Arkansas Sky, Inc., his private non-profit and educational research and educational program. Although now retired, the work, publications and outreach from him via the Arkansas Sky Observatory ranks among the top in private non-profit facilities. In his second appearance on the show, Clay and I talked about his latest book which covers the entire spectrum of the change in the Earth’s climate. We noted...
Archaeologist Dr. Sarah Parcak
August 26, 2019 23:53 - 34 minutes - 16 MBDr. Sarah Parcak is an archaeologist, anthropologist, Egyptologist, and remote sensing expert who has used satellite imaging to identify potential archaeological sites in Egypt, Rome, and elsewhere. She’s written the first textbook in the field of satellite archaeology, called Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology. She holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in Egyptian Archaeology and is currently at the Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham. Sarah told me how she became fascinated by Egyptolog...
Science Communicator Dr. Kiki Sanford (#7)
August 19, 2019 21:04 - 38 minutes - 17.8 MBDr. Kiki Sanford makes her seventh appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a B.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. avian neurophysiology from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we chat about Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Tardigrades on the Earth’s moon, how Dark Matter may have actually preceded the Big Bang, how older parents tend to have children with few...
TMO Contributor Kelly Guimont
August 12, 2019 21:44 - 36 minutes - 17.1 MBKelly Guimont is a long-time podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, the host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, a tech support guru, and a Founding Volunteer of App Camp for Girls. Kelly first appeared here in December, 2015 to tell her career story and has returned many times for interesting technical and media discussions. In her 7th appearance, we chat about our favorite TV shows of late. John: Anne With an “E” (Netflix) and Outlander (Netflix). Kelly: Good...
ZDNet Sr. Technical Editor Jason Perlow
August 05, 2019 21:08 - 32 minutes - 15.3 MBJason Perlow is a a well-known technical journalist. He is also also a technologist with over two decades of experience in cloud computing, IoT, mobility, security, open source, enterprise systems architecture, Microsoft technology, and Software as a Service. Today, he is a Senior Technical Editor at ZDNet and an Information Security Threat Writer at Proofpoint. Jason started his tech life at age 12 with an Apple II Plus thanks to a very technical father. But after college, Jason was hired ...
Future Historian Steve Carper
July 29, 2019 21:10 - 35 minutes - 16.5 MBSteve Carper is a Future Historian, researching how the dazzling future that dominated the Golden Age of science fiction was created—starting with the technological frenzy of the late 19th century. Steve writes a bi-weekly robot column at BlackGate.com and his latest book, published in June 2019, is Robots in American Popular Culture. This book examines society’s reactions to robots and androids such as Robby, Rosie, Elektro, Sparko, Data, WALL-E, C-3PO and the Terminator in popular culture...
Theoretical Physicist Dr. Jim Gates
July 22, 2019 21:43 - 38 minutes - 18 MBDr. Jim Gates is a theoretical physicist and currently the Brown Theoretical Physics Center Director, Ford Foundation Professor of Physics, Affiliate Mathematics Professor, and a Watson Institute for International Studies & Public Affairs Faculty Fellow at Brown University. He is known for his work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. We opened the show with a discussion of Jim’s early career, a B.S. with a dual major in mathematics and physics at MIT and, later, his Ph.D...
Science Fiction Author Darren Beyer
July 15, 2019 21:13 - 35 minutes - 16.4 MBDarren Beyer is a former NASA Space Shuttle engineer at Kennedy Space Center who worked on launching and recovering more than a dozen missions. He also conducted astronaut training and had the honor of working onboard every Space Shuttle orbiter except Challenger. In late 1998, he left NASA to become an author. The result was the Anghazi series of novels, Casimir Bridge, released in 2016 to rave reviews thanks largely to his commitment to putting the science back in science fiction. The sec...
Director, Vatican Observatory Br. Guy Consolmagno
July 08, 2019 21:35 - 37 minutes - 17.4 MBBr. Guy Consolmagno earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Planetary Science from MIT and his Ph.D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona. He’s been at the Vatican Observatory since 1993 and is currently the director there where his research explores connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies. Br. Guy has co-authored two astronomy books as well as popular books such as Would you Baptize and Extraterrestrial?” He is a Jesuit...
Founder Bombich Software, Mike Bombich (#2)
July 01, 2019 20:49 - 26 minutes - 12.6 MBMike Bombich is the founder and president of Bombich Software, the developer of Carbon Copy Cloner. That’s a backup app for the Mac that has saved the day for many users. He’s a former Apple employee. In this timely post-WWDC show, Mike joins me to explain the structure of APFS drives and the new read-only System files in macOS Catalina. He explained new features of volumes in macOS 10.15, especially how the System is isolated from the Data volume (which contains /Users). He also explained ...
TMO Contributor John Kheit (#3)
June 24, 2019 19:29 - 37 minutes - 17.5 MBJohn Kheit is a New York attorney and a regular contributor to The Mac Observer. We share many common interests, including the 4K/UHD/HDR TV revolution, 8K TV and displays, Wi-Fi/5G technologies and the state of Apple. In this special post-WWDC show, we chatted about author Kheit’s view of the new Mac Pro. He believes that while the 2019 Mac Pro will meet the needs of most technical and creative professionals, Apple also betrayed an important group of influencers, the Mac enthusiasts by not...
Former Apple Senior Director Michael Gartenberg (#6)
June 17, 2019 21:01 - 40 minutes - 18.8 MBMichael Gartenberg spent three years as Apple’s Senior Director of Product Marketing, reporting directly to Senior VP Phil Schiller. In his sixth encore appearance on Background Mode, Michael and I analyze Apple’s 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). We started with a discussion of the new 2019 Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR. We also pondered why Apple SVP of Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, was noticeably absent from the stage. As an aside, Michael tells a hilarious story about S...
Professor of Astrophysics Dr. Jo Dunkley
June 10, 2019 19:55 - 34 minutes - 16.1 MBDr. Jo Dunkley is a professor of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Her research is in cosmology, studying the origins and evolution of the universe. She holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from University of Oxford. Jo had an interesting path to her Ph.D. Her earliest love was mathematics, and soon she realized she could use math to answer questions about the real world. That led to a love for physics (at Cambridge) and getting her Master’s. While there, she discovered r...
Professor of Space Resources Dr. George Sowers
June 04, 2019 20:25 - 38 minutes - 17.9 MBDr. George Sowers holds an undergraduate degree in physics from Georgia Tech and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado in Quantum Field theory. He has worked for Lockheed Martin and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) where he was the chief scientist and vice president. Currently, he’s a professor of Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines. We chatted about George’s evolving career, from geologic engineering to physics to rocket launches with Lockheed Martin to General Rel...
TMO Background Mode Interview #2 with TMO Contributor John Kheit
May 28, 2019 23:24 - 33 minutes - 15.4 MBJohn Kheit is a New York attorney and a regular Contributor to The Mac Observer. We share many common interests, including the 4K/UHD/HDR TV revolution, 8K TV and displays, Wi-Fi/5G technologies, and the state of Apple. We chatted about the legacy magic touch of Apple exemplified by the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Has Apple lost the ability to surprise us with solutions to problems we didn’t know we had? Along the way, the touchy subject of Apple’s Butterfly keyboard came up. In the secon...
TMO Background Mode Interview with iCEO of the Electronic Transactions Association Amy Zirkle
May 20, 2019 20:05 - 37 minutes - 17.2 MBAmy Zirkle is the interim CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA). Prior to joining ETA, she spent 17 years working as a Senior Economist focusing on technology matters including mobile payments in the developing world. She holds an S.M. degree from M.I.T. where she served as a Research Associate at the M.I.T. Media Lab as well as the M.I.T. Research Program on Communications Policy. Amy and I talked about her work at the M.I.T. Media Lab, the early days of electronic payments ...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Science Historian Dr. Matthew Stanley
May 13, 2019 21:00 - 36 minutes - 16.9 MBDr. Matt Stanley is a teacher and researcher in the history and philosophy of science. He holds degrees in astronomy, religion, physics, and the history of science and is interested in the connections between science and the wider culture. His Ph.D. is from Harvard in the history of science, and he is currently a professor at New York University. We chatted about how Matt came to be immersed in physics as well as the history of science and religion. He found that a proper modern perpective ...
TMO Background Mode Special Edition Chat #6 with Kelly Guimont
May 06, 2019 22:07 - 37 minutes - 17.5 MBKelly Guimont is a long-time podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, the host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, a tech support guru, and a Founding Volunteer of App Camp for Girls. Kelly first appeared here in December, 2015 to tell her career story and has returned several times for interesting technical discussions. In this encore special edition, we chat about our favorite TV shows of late. John: Stargate SG-1 (Amazon), Endeavour (Amazon), Electric Dreams (Am...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Cosmologist Dr. Andrew Friedman
April 29, 2019 21:58 - 44 minutes - 20.4 MBDr. Andrew Friedman is an astronomer, cosmologist, and data scientist. He’s currently an NSF funded Assistant Research Scientist at the University of California at San Diego Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences. He is also a Research Affiliate in the MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society. He holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Harvard. We chatted about how science fiction inspired him as a youth to become a cosmologist. Also, how important it is to have a Ph.D. the...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Author and Artist Michael Benson
April 22, 2019 20:42 - 45 minutes - 21.2 MBMichael Benson works at the intersection of art and science as both a writer and artist. His new book, Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece examines the four year long production of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Michael saw the movie 2001 at age six, and it had a profound influence on his career, especially in his art and science/photography books. We chatted about his book: how Arthur Clarke and Stanley Kubrick met, Kubrick’s view of th...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Technical Journalist Lance Ulanoff
April 15, 2019 21:43 - 42 minutes - 19.5 MBLance is a technology journalist, on-air expert, consultant, and influencer. He’s been a senior editor at Online Windows Magazine, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, and Chief Correspondent and Editor-in-chief at Mashable. Currently, Lance is a Freelance Journalist and contributor to Medium. He’s appeared on Live with Kelly and Ryan, The Today Show and Good Morning America. We chatted about his early interest in journalism, but it didn’t have a technical focus when he got his B.A. Lance descr...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Takeoff Technologies President Max Pedró
April 08, 2019 22:42 - 36 minutes - 16.7 MBMax Pedró is an eCommerce and financial services entrepreneur. Today, Max is the Co-Founder and President of Takeoff Technologies Inc. Takeoff Technologies aims at transforming on-line grocery retailing by developing a marketplace of efficient automated robotic fulfillment centers to solve the cost and immediacy issues of grocery shopping. I asked Max all the tough questions about having a robot pick groceries off the shelves and prepare for pickup or delivery. What about customer preferen...
TMO Background Mode Interview #2 with Producer Rod Roddenberry
April 01, 2019 22:16 - 39 minutes - 17.4 MBRod Roddenberry is a media producer. The son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, he’s following in his father’s footsteps. Today, Rod is carrying on his father’s work as a producer, the chief executive of Roddenberry Entertainment and the founder of the Roddenberry Foundation. We chatted about how Star Trek: The Next Generation was his first-love version of the show, the Star Trek philosophy, the show’s split between CBS (TV) and Paramount (movies), what a producer actually does behin...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Astronomer Dr. Clay Sherrod
March 26, 2019 22:31 - 38 minutes - 17 MBDr. Clay Sherrod’s astronomical studies began, soon after his Ph.D. work, in 1970 with the Arkansas Sky, Inc., his private non-profit and educational research and educational program. Although now retired, the work, publications and outreach from him via the Arkansas Sky Observatory ranks among the top in private non-profit facilities. We chatted about how he got interested in astronomy at age 8. His grandfather, an educator who owned a country farm, was instrumental in introducing Clay to ...
TMO Background Mode Interview #4 with Tidbits Managing Editor Josh Centers
March 18, 2019 19:52 - 43 minutes - 19 MBJosh Centers is the Managing Editor of Tidbits.com and has published several Take Control (TC) books. He’s the author of Take Control of Apple TV and Take Control of Home Automation. He’s been writing the Take Control books for iOS since version 8, and his latest book is Take Control of iOS 12. Josh is a great guest and very knowledgeable about Apple, so I invited him to return to Background Mode for the fourth time. In this show, we first discussed the technology and viability of foldable ...
TMO Background Mode Special Edition Chat #5 with Kelly Guimont
March 11, 2019 22:00 - 32 minutes - 14.5 MBKelly Guimont is a long-time pro podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, a tech support guru, and a Founding Volunteer of App Camp for Girls. Kelly first appeared here in December, 2015 to tell her career story and has returned several times for interesting technical discussions. In this encore special edition, we chat about our favorite TV shows of late. John: Star Trek: Discovery, Saving Hope, and Being Erica. Kelly: The...
TMO Background Mode Interview with TMO Podcaster and Journalist John Braun
March 04, 2019 22:14 - 39 minutes - 17.5 MBJohn Braun is a software engineer, multiple patent holder, a Mac Observer Contributor and co-host of the Mac Observer’s podcast Mac Geek Gab (MGG). That podcast launched in 2005, and John has co-hosted 750 episodes to date. We chatted about John’s early interest in computers and science, influenced in part by his father, an engineering manager. John started off partial to chemistry, but later specialized in computers. He holds aa B.S. in Computer Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science ...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Houston Chronicle Technology Editor Dwight Silverman
February 26, 2019 21:50 - 40 minutes - 18.1 MBDwight Silverman is the technology editor for the Houston Chronicle. He manages the TechBurger website, and writes about personal technology for HoustonChronicle.com, Chron.com and the print edition. Previously, he was the senior web producer for premium products, managing HoustonChronicle.com, the Chronicle’s iPad app and E-edition. He also worked as the social media manager and technology blogger for the Houston Chronicle and Chron.com. We chatted about becoming a technology journalist i...
TMO Background Mode Encore #6 Interview with Science Communicator Dr. Kiki Sanford
February 18, 2019 22:41 - 35 minutes - 15.8 MBDr. Kiki Sanford makes her sixth appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a B.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. avian neurophysiology from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we chat about the science of rising sea levels, neural networks and vocoder technology trained to recognize brain patterns related to listening to human speech, how learning two...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Princeton Theoretical Physicist Dr. Paul Steinhardt
February 11, 2019 21:57 - 37 minutes - 16.5 MBPaul Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor in Science at Princeton University, where he is on the faculty of both the departments of Physics and of Astrophysical Sciences. He co-founded the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science and is currently the Director of that prestigious research institution. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard, and his research interests include cosmology, inflation theory, dark matter and specialized solids, including QuasiCrystals. We chatted about the...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Science Writer & Skeptic Dr. Michael Shermer
February 04, 2019 22:11 - 35 minutes - 16.3 MBMichael is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, a former monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. He is also a noted science writer and the author of New York Times bestsellers Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain, Why Darwin Matters, and The Science of Good and Evil. His newest book is: Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality & Utopia. We chatted abo...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Veteran Technology Reporter John Markoff
January 28, 2019 22:00 - 39 minutes - 18.4 MBJohn is a former New York Times reporter reporting nationally on science and computing. He’s been an adjunct faculty member of the Stanford Graduate Program on Journalism. In 2013 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. John has published several books on the computer industry. Currently he’s a Research Affiliate at the Stanford University Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences researching a biography of Stewart Brand, the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. We talked about his earl...
TMO Background Mode Interview with the CIO of CoSN Susan Bearden
January 22, 2019 00:10 - 40 minutes - 18.7 MBSusan is the Chief Innovation Officer for the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) in Washington D.C. From 2016 to 2017 she was a Senior Education Pioneers Fellow for the U.S. Department of Education. She also participates in the EdTechChat Radio podcast for the BAM Radio Network. After a discussion about Susan’s fascinating career progression from musician to IT specialist to Education Technology specialist, we launched into a discussion of “digital citizenship,” also the title of her b...
TMO Background Mode Interview with TMO Contributor Andrew Orr
January 14, 2019 21:32 - 32 minutes - 15.2 MBAndrew is a Contributing Editor at The Mac Observer assigned to the morning news desk. He is also a science and nature lover, with a special interest in botany, as well as an amateur nature photographer. I asked Andrew about growing up in Michigan and his early interest in writing. He also started using computers when he was young and recalled how had to eradicate a virus from an Windows XP PC at age 13. Later he studied computer security at Bay de Noc Community College, and he attributes ...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Journalist & TMO Contributor Charlotte Henry
January 07, 2019 23:05 - 31 minutes - 14.7 MBCharlotte is a London-based technical journalist. She writes about Apple — and is now The Mac Observer’s newest regular contributor. She has also written for City A.M. (London’s daily business tabloid,) Computer Business Review, The Independent on Sunday and CapX. Her first book, Not Buying It, will be published in June. I asked Charlotte how she got started in technical journalism. The first factor derived from the fact, that, as a youth, there were always new technical gadgets showing up ...
TMO Background Mode Interview with Astrophysicist Dr. Jill Tarter
December 31, 2018 22:44 - 34 minutes - 16.1 MBJill is a Ph.D. astrophysicist known for her work in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. She’s the former director of the Center for SETI Research (2000-2012) and Adjunct Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy at USC until 2014. Currently, she’s Chair Emeritus for SETI Research at the SETI Institute. I asked Jill about how she got started with computers as well as astrophysics, her Ph.D. work and how she became involved with SETI. Then we delved into some of the broader is...
TMO Background Mode Interview with CNET Journalist Shara Tibken
December 17, 2018 22:08 - 39 minutes - 18.4 MBShara Tibken is a senior reporter/journalist for CNET News, focused on Samsung and Apple. She previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal. She grew up on a farm in Iowa, where her mother was a teacher, and Shara became an avid book reader. That led to a desire to be a writer, meet people and learn new things. We chatted about her progression from Simpson College to interning for a small newspaper in North Dakota to landing a job with Dow Jones Newswires/WSJ and fina...