About the Personal Computer Radio Show on WBAI in NYC

Co-Hosts Joe King and Hank Kee have been bringing you computer industry news, hardware and software reviews, guest interviews and news of User Group meetings for 26 years.

Three-time winners of the prestigious national Computer Press Awards, the computer guys try to answer whatever questions you might have on computers and computing. A listener referred to the show as "Car Talk for computers."

The Personal Computer Show airs Wednesday nights from 8PM to 9PM ET on WBAI 99.5 in New York City.

The show starts off with Hank doing the computer news of the week. Then we discuss the topic of the week until 8:30. The second half of the show starts with announcements of local user group meetings, followed by listener questions for the rest of the show. Call and ask us a computer related question at (212) 209-2900.

The first Personal Computer Radio Show aired on WBAI on August 6, 1984.

Live Streaming

WBAI should be heard in a 90 mile radius around Manhattan (the station broadcasts at 50,000 watts). If you're more than 90 miles of the Empire State Building (where the antenna for WBAI is), you can listen on the Internet at stream.wbai.org.

RSS Feed and Podcast

In July 2004 we started an RSS feed at www.pcradioshow2.org/rss/pcradioshow.rss.xml. We initially used it for classic RSS Feed things: to note the availability of the MP3 audio archives, to occasionally announce upcoming show topics or guests and to notify listeners of any scheduling changes (such as pre-emptions). Starting August 2005, Podcasting was added to the RSS feed.

RSS Feeds are read either with programs called RSS Aggregators or with a web-based interface. Two free web sites for reading RSS Feeds are newsgator.com and bloglines.com. If you read/subscribe to our Podcasting RSS feed with a program that only understands RSS, the Podcasting feature will simply be ignored (technically it is called the "enclosure" feature).

None of this affects the MP3 show recordings, which are still listed on the same web page as always (www.pcradioshow2.org) and can still be manually downloaded.

Add our RSS feed to Newsgator (opens in new window).	Add our RSS feed to iTunes (opens in new window).
Add our RSS feed to My Yahoo (opens in new window).	Add our RSS feed to Bloglines (opens in new window).

For some background on RSS:

A Guide to Using RSS, Which Helps You Scan Vast Array of Web Sites by Walter Mossberg May 5, 2005
How To Use RSS by Preston Gralla May 24, 2005
RSS Tutorial by Mark Nottingham May 2004
What is RSS? by Dan Bricklin
What is RSS? by Mark Pilgrim December 18, 2002
What's an RSS Aggregator? by Dave Taylor
O'Reilly's RSS DevCenter: www.oreillynet.com/topics/rss/getting_started
Lockergnome's RSS Resource: rss.lockergnome.com/resources
RSS Tutorial: www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial
Fine-Tuning Your Filter for Online Information The New York Times (undated)
News on Demand Tired of browsing around the Web for timely information? RSS readers deliver exactly the news you need--fast. Bob Stepno in the July 2004 issue of PC World magazine
To find a Podcast reader program see www.podcastalley.com, www.ipodder.org and www.podcast-software.com

Joe King

Joe first crossed swords with computers back in 1964. Professionally, he has written columns and published books on the subject for the last 25 years. A former president of the New York Amateur Computer Club, he started broadcasting on WBAI in 1984.

You can see an older picture of Joe or another older picture or a larger version (28K) of this picture (all open in new browser windows).

Joe is happy to hear from you and will try to answer any computer related questions you may have. Send him an email at

Hank Kee

Hank has experience in computer automation dating back to 1960. His professional career includes technical and managerial responsibilities for major financial service institutions. He was formerly a columnist for InfoWorld and MicroSystems Journal. He was the first recipient of the PC Magazine Award for Technical Excellence. Selected by PC World in 1988 for Man of the Year. He has been a featured speaker at trade conferences and has an extensive background in strategic business systems planning. He has been a participant on various industries' advisory panels.

You can see an older picture of Hank or a larger version (about 25K) of this picture (both open in new browser windows).

Hank is happy to hear from you and will try to answer any computer related questions you may have. Send him an email at

David Perry

I first worked in technical education as a college lab instructor in 1974. My first computer job was with Antic, the Atari resource in 1981. I worked at Eagle computer, at Toshiba, and at Sun Computers before coming to Peter Norton/Symantec in 1991. I was on the original support team for NAV 1.0.

By the end of five years with Syamantec, I was managing all online support for all SYMANTEC owned AV products (at the time this included NAV, SAM, CPAV, MSAV, Search and Destroy, Untouchable, Certus, NOVI and several others. I was a sysop on the Symantec web page, BBS, and the area producer for both CompuServe and AOL.

In 1994 I went to McAfee Associates, where I ran all online support and services. From there I went to Cybermedia, where I managed all service and support, a team of nearly 100 people.

At that time I became the local chapter president of the Help Desk Institute.

I joined Trend Micro in 1998, and today handle a mix of keynote speaking, press relations, outbreak education and technical research.

I have served in presidential committees, spoken at NATO and all over the world.

I would like to leave the world a better place, even a very slightly better place, because I was there.
- - - - - -
David, who lives in Huntington Beach, California, is also an amateur magician and plays the banjo.

Stevie Debe

After returning to New York in 1980 after serving fours years as a Teletype repairman in the United States Air Force, Stevie Debe started his broadcasting career that same year with The National Broadcasting System. There he broadcasted a weekly half hour music program at FM station WWUU in Longbranch, New Jersey. Always interested in communications and technology Stevie started working full time for a major communication company as a technician in 1981 serving the Wall Street area.

Stevie stopped doing live radio at that time. Stevie returned to radio in 1998 when he came to WBAI as an engineer through Mr. Anthony Sloan, the Arts Department Director. Stevie was welcomed to The Personal Computer Show as their engineer.

As well as radio engineering Stevie currently installs and maintains a major communications network, computers, and printers for a major communication company in New York city. Stevie also volunteers as a technician for public access television on Long Island. Multi talented Stevie Debe also has a CD available at www.cdbaby.com/steviedebe and plays bass with local as well as internationally known bands. Stevie also does some acting on television and film.

Michael Horowitz

Michael is our webmaster. After stumbling across computers while in college, Michael's first job in 1975 was as an IBM mainframe programmer, a job category he stuck with for 10 years. That was followed by nine years as a mainframe DB2 database administrator. Since then he has worked in a research and development group and done technical writing and editing. He has also taught a whole host of self-developed Continuing Education classes. Currently he is a computer consultant and blogger, writing a Defensive Computing blog for Computerworld. His personal site is michaelhorowitz.com.

Acknowledgments

Our musical theme, the Wanhal Stomp, is by Sue Keller. It is based on Johann Wanhal (1739-1813) / Rondo from Sonata in B flat for clarinet and piano. Our first use of this theme came from Dorothy Siegal's interpretation for her own synthesizer on an album entitled: First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival. Dorothy brought it to our show in 1985. Sue Keller reinterpreted it in 1997. Listen to a MIDI version of the theme.

This web site is hosted by Panix

Alumni

Alfred Poor

Alfred Poor is one of the most widely read experts on computer troubleshooting and display technology, with monthly readership in magazines and on the Web measured in the millions. He is an independent technology industry analyst and freelance writer, and publisher of Alfred Poor's HDTV Resource Center.

He is a Senior Research Associate with Pacific Media Associates, a market research firm serving the display industry. He also is President of Working Papers, a technical writing service that creates white papers and other documents for technology companies. In addition, Alfred is a member of the Society for Information Display, an international organization of professionals in the display technology industry.

Alfred is a columnist with Computer Shopper magazine, where he has written Alfred Poor's Computer Cures since 1994. He wrote feature articles and reviews for PC Magazine from 1983 to 2005, was a contributing editor from 1989 to 2005, and was the magazine's first Lead Analyst for Business Displays. In addition, he has written for Family PC, PC Week, PC Sources, Windows Sources, and Computer Life magazines.

Alfred has written numerous computer books, including Troubleshooting Your PC published by Microsoft Press that he co-authored with M. David Stone. The book offers PC hardware troubleshooting for people not experienced in the area.

From early 2001 through 2009, Alfred joined Joe and Hank as a co-host on The Personal Computer Show.

About The Show