About

Our goals are to:

1) Help our listeners and users of this website to have a better online experience, and
2) Promote the Internet and technology industries in southeastern Michigan.

We bring you interesting guests and answer listeners’ questions about the Internet and the digital devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones etc.) you use to access the Internet.

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Gary Baker has had a long career working with computers and promoting technology development in Michigan.  In the fall of 1997 when Foster called his ISP, Online Technologies Corporation (now Online Tech), and asked for help with some connection issues he talked with Gary, who was President and one of the founders.  Their conversation and the whole idea of helping people enjoy their computer and online experience grew from there into the Internet Advisor show in early 1998 and an alliance that has become Detroit’s longest running locally produced technology talk show since then.  Gary also appeared as the Internet Advisor on Channel 7 Action News, WXYZ-TV in Detroit, every Thursday morning from October 2000 to October 2002.

Gary is currently the Director of IT/CIO for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and previously was the SVP & CIO at Gale, a part of Cengage Learning and VP of IT Delivery at Borders Group in Ann Arbor.  He was also a partner in Arthur Andersen’s Business Consulting, Director of IT Transformation Services at AlixPartners and an executive in EDS at GM.  Gary is a sought after lecturer on IT topics and new processes and technologies locally and nationally.

Foster Braun has been co-hosting the radio program on WJR since early February, 1998, except for a very short period when Warren Pierce and Gary co-hosted the show.  Foster has been with WJR since 1996 and in the Detroit radio market since 1975 where he has worked talk shows for most of his career.  Since 1998 he has gained enough knowledge of computers to ruin some really fine machines and then fix most of them with the help of the other Internet Advisors.  In 2008 he crossed over to the Dark Side and started worked exclusively on a MacBook Pro laptop.  His wife Ginny, however, still insists on using a Windows PC at home;  so he is now equally confused in both worlds!  He fancies himself as the voice of the listener sometimes fighting through the geek-speak to explanations that even he can understand.

Ed Rudel joined as a co-host in 2003.  Ed has worked for many years as an executive troubleshooter for HP in Detroit where he works with Cal Carson.  He is also a reformed “hacker”  (white hat….good guys) and every relatives’ favorite troubleshooter, including Foster and he isn’t even related.

 

 

 

Cal Carson joined us in the mid-2000′s to defend the honor of the “Dark Side” and help us with questions about Macintosh (Apple) Computers.  Cal is an active member of the Detroit MacGroup and works with Ed Rudel as a corporate troubleshooter for HP in Detroit and is fluent in Windows and Mac.

 

 

 

Emily A. Hay is the founder of Hay There Social Media where she focuses on helping small businesses and individuals “get” social media and make the most of the different tools available to further their purposes.  She is part of the Internet Advisor Expert Team and hosts a new homepage resource (2012) Social Media which will take users from the basics (Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ etc.) to more sophisticated ways of building business through careful use of the right tools.

 

Rick Broida, The Gadget Guy has written about technology for more than 20 years. The author of more than a dozen books, he currently pens the popular Cheapskate and iPhone Atlas blogs for CNET. He also writes for PC World, Popular Science, Savings.com, and Wired.   Rick will provide monthly specials on the gadgets we love or will do so soon as he tells us about them.  As a bonus, each time Rick appears on the show he will have a bargain to share.

 

 

 

Shane Hamelin joined the Internet Advisor team recently as a tech expert. Shane has also hosted a regular radio show on CBS about the his favorite pursuit: Gaming. He is familiar with PC’s, gaming and portable technologies. Shane currently works with a technology group called Comptech Services in Sterling Heights, Michigan where he specializes in custom computers, home network computer solutions and sales.

 

Steve DeDoes: Way back when the Internet Advisor was just starting we felt that we needed a distinct “sound”, an audio signature that would click every time a listener heard it and say, “Hey, that’s the Internet Advisor Show!” Co-host Gary Baker sought out Ann Arbor, Michigan song writer, musician and music professor Steve DeDoes for the task and he generously created our signature theme music. In 2011 we asked him for a refresh and he successfully “gilded the lily” by adding his talented son Mattie’s saxophone to the mix giving us a street-savvy, “saxy” version 2.0 of our theme music.  Steve is currently part of the Washtenaw County College Performing Arts Faculty and his son Mattie is a music student at Oberlin College in Ohio.

Our flagship station is WJR 760 AM, Detroit and we are also heard on the following Michigan stations:

Michigan Talk Network Affiliates

WJRW	AM	1340	Grand Rapids	Sun 1p-2p
WJIM	AM	1240	Lansing	Sun 2p-4p
WNEM	AM	1250	Saginaw	Sun 12p-2p
WKMI	AM	1360	Kalamazoo	Sun 12p-1p
WKLQ	AM	1490	Muskegon	Sat 4p-6p, Sun 12p-2p