Slashdot Mirror
Keyboards are Havens for Super Bugs
Techguy666 writes "Gee, this is a suprise. Researchers have found that keyboards harbor bacteria and super-germs. This is particularly interesting this time because this research noted that there is a lot of computer use in hospitals and they're finding it really difficult to sterilize them."
The clever golgafrinchans who stayed behind were wiped out by a disease caught from an unsanitary telephone. Does this study suggest we're on a similar path (unless we begin training keyboard sanitizers) or is it possible they are helping keep out immune systems regularly tested by the evils which lurk beneath the h, j, k and l keys.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Perhaps using a keyboard you can clean the "normal" way would help:& lastcatid=119&step=4
http://www.icintracom.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=4564
Now don't say that they couldn't have thought of it too (I mean that, don't say it).
I'm far too scared to type.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
http://fingerworks.com/
I have one, you can clean the entire surface with windex or lysol. It uses E-field sensing so does not have the drawbacks of membrane keyboards and in fact has many advantages over regular keyboards.
http://notanumber.net/
...research noted that there is a lot of computer use in hospitals...
I wonder how much grant money they got for that one.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
They could put a plastic cover over the keyboard, with molds for each of hte keys, and spray/wipe that plastic cover with bleach every now and then.
on screen keyboards?
I've been figured out! I guess I'll have to go with plan B... hiding my superbacteria in the folds of fat old IT drones.....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
By saying "keyboards harbor bacteria and super-germs" in the present tense, "harbor" means that keyboards right now contain super-germs. That is a crock, and a gross mis-characterization of what the study found. In the study, they _innoculated_ keyboards with "super germs", then found how long the germs could live. So the headline ought to read more like "bacteria and super-germs can survive on keyboards for 24 hours or more". Rob---
About the word "if": If bullfrogs had wings, they wouldn't bounce around on their little green butts.
This is the most ridiculous piece of non-news I've seen in a while. This so-called 'researcher', Dr. Gary Noskins, needs to research Google for some sealed keyboards.
These keyboards have been in use for quite a while...durable, washable, and yes, they can be sterilized.
Links here and here just for starters.
Mabye I should mail Dr.Noskin my findings...mabye I can publish a study of my own.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
It's well explained why a lot of bugs in software that are "unebuggable".
http://www.michel.eti.br
Computer keyboards are easy to clean, just stick it in the dishwasher, it works fine afterwards.
Nice surface for bugs, grease and moisture hangs around for ages.
Wood is what you need. Dries out the bugs in no time at all.
I've seen wooden keyboards but they are horrendously expensive. Sigh.
The motto is: don't share your keyboard, and when you go to a cybercafe, wash your hands afterwards, and don't pick your nose.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I work in a research lab, and the way we clean keyboards is by using compressed air to blow out the dust and dirt, then spraying them with 70% ethanol to remove organics. After the ethanol, they airdry pretty quick, and at the very least, we *think* they're clean. :)
1) Develop a touchpad keyboard that mimics the key travel of traditional keyboards but can easily be sterilized.
2) Pitch to the medical community
3) Profit!
Is a more lightweight, disposable version of those plastic keyboard covers. It would be a membrane thin and flexible enough that it wouldn't interfere with your typing, but which could be thrown out at the end of the day. It would also, conveniently, protect your keyboard from wayward food particles and corrosive finger oils.
I can only assume that if making such a thing were easy it would have been done by now.
I don't know about you, but I'd get my daily dose of bacteria from my keyboard and keep my immune system up and ready to fight off.
Properly hand washing/cleaning alleviate this problem. The hospitals I work at are setup with hand cleaner all over the place so its nearly impossible to forget.
Keyboards go through dish washers just fine. Also, H202 would probably do the trick. Or even alcohol.
The internet definetly perpetuates my self-diagnosed OCD ... at least the hand sanitizer gel I keep next to my workstations have more of a basis for being there.
Keyboards are so cheap nowadays that hospitals could easily change them every 24-72 hours....and somehow get away with billing it to patients' health insurance.
Nosce Te Ipsum
I bet all that "protein" that lands on the keyboards of many of us slashdotters are helping those strains out, don't you think?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I've had real live bugs living in my keyboard before - I guess it's a warm and snug place for them to live. I was happily tapping away one day, when this cockroach-type thing crawled out from under the Z key. Luckily, they didn't attack any of the wiring, but it was scary nonetheless.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Clean them with bleach or germicide, replace when no longer functional.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Only type with one hand, half the germs, twice the fun.
No smoking sigs indoors.
A solution like the laser keyboard could be ideal for the situation, though it will be a while before the cost comes down. Since it projects onto a surface, the table/counter could be cleaned easily.
According to the study, from researchers at the University of Arizona, phones have up to 25,127 germs per square inch, keyboards 3,295 per square inch and computer mice 1,676 per square inch.
source here
fuvoo: watch something
While I can understand a concern for this in hospitals where peoples immune systems are already comprimised, for the rest of this, this should be irrelevent.
Living in a purely sterile enviroment weaks your immune system. Our bodies require a "tainted" enviroment. While we don't need to be "dirty" all the time, if make sure everything is always clean, don't be surprised when that flu lasts a month.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Semiseriously, if something has evolved that 'prefers' keyboards as an appropriate environment (lots of nooks and crannies in the plastic, frequent and multiple hosts stopping by, etc), how long before something decides that keyboards are a good ecological niche, and starts eating them?
This not entirely frivolous, as we have microbes that can metabolism halohydrocarbons, and fungus capable of etching glass is a disturbingly common problem for photographers. You could get a flesh-eating bacteria from the keyboard, and it would get a plastic-eating superbug from you.
Seems only fair.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
... according to the article. (And cell phones ? This could get interesting.)
The bacteria they're most worried about don't usually exist outside of hospitals.
Cue jokes referring to one-handed web surfing.
<grrr>
Take it apart and clean it every six months or so.
Unscrew what can be unscrewed, and lever the keys off with a screwdriver. Clean the under-key area as well as everywhere else with some window cleaner (or whatever solvent you have around) and clean the keys one-by-one in warm, soapy water. Then let everything dry (a hair dryer set on a cool setting can speed things up with the main part of the keyboard) and put everything back together again.
By the way, if you're unable to put together a keyboard layout from memory, I suggest taking a couple of quick pictures of your keyboard with a digital camera - at least that way you won't be left wondering which key goes where.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You could always clean it in the dishwasher...
don't forget about the lethal combination: shift + 2
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/5a7f/
Since the whole thing is sealed, I can put it in the dishwasher if I want.
Although the keycaps have had a tendancy to wear off... I wish they made them some way that they didn't.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Try an elementary school. Kids there deposit all kinds of crap into it - hair, boogers, spilled milk, dead roaches, et cetera - and ninety-nine percent of the time, the techs can't clean them all out. Hell, I only cracked open the keyboards and mice (and cases, for that matter) last year (300 machines), and I was astounded at what was in it, especially since they'd not been cleaned since we got them (and some are still P1 machines).
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
If this is truely a problem, I'd suggest bringing in membrane keyboards with disposable plastic slip covers, which could be changed daily. Sure it would suck to type on. But it would solve the problem.
Project this onto an untreated wooden surface, you have zero bugs and nothing to clean:
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=118539
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
It's suprising that the article didn't even mention that keyboards exist like this one would eliminate the "difficult to sterilize" problem since the entire keyboard CAN be dipped in a cleaning solution without any adverse affects to the keyboard components.
I guess Elaines' boss on Seinfeld did have something to worry about.. I'd have to imagine keyboards are still much safer than most curancy? Imagine when you are using a keyboard you are touching everything that anyone else who has used that keyboard before has touched.. I guess it isn't as scary if it isn't applied to sex. But you have to think about it, it could be pretty gross..
The NIH's National Institute of The Obvious and Yet Overlooked released their findings today of a study that found living on the planet Earth can lead to death, and a variety of illnesses and disorders. The study recommends to avoid the risk of life, one shold look into the practices of "shut-ins" and has also set up a non-profit to help distribute the film "Boy in a Bubble".
They haven't yet learned about those thick plastic covers that you put on the keyboards? seems to me that you could dunk it in bleach with that on. We used to have those on every keyboard back when I worked at an auto shop during high school.
They should use a projected keyboard, like the Canesta Keyboard, which projects the image of a keyboard onto a flat surface, and detects your fingers as they "type".
Everybody knows how to clean a flat surface effectively.
Enjoy an e-piphany
These rock at the office, too.
I swear it sounds like a TB ward here at least twice a year.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
and all the paper shuffling that the computer systems are (supposedly) replacing wasn't a significant vector for disease transmission?
...or is handwriting recognition for doctors an impossibility? :)
how about we get some waterproof, sterilizable tablet PC's for the doctors/nurses?
Man I should be a high priced consultant.
Here is a what a quick Froogle search came up with.
Keyboard Condom
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Another million dollar idea given away for free. Just be sure to put my name on the patent.
Why not use encased, plastic keyboards in hospitals? They are already on the market. They are pretty cheap. And they have a smooth surface that you can wipe clean (no nooks or crannies).
I've also heard rumors that you can put most keyboards through a dish washer. So you could probably sell rebranded dishwashers to the medical industry for $10,000 a pop in the wake of this news.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
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Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
My computer has bugs, my keyboard has bugs...what's next, a monitor bug?
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
You know I've been considering mailing in some keyboards from around the office for biological testing. To all you filthy engineers* out there, the IT staff occasionally may have to use that keyboard... try not to drool on it, or use it as a plate, or whatever the hell you guys do to get it so rancid.
*or anyone else, really, it just happens to be engineers around this office
we did it all the time in the microbiology lab.
we had "water resistant" keyboards so simply slipping one in a large ziplock and then ploping it in the autoclave would do the trick in 60 minutes.
Some brands did not survive the 250 degrees temperature peak and hold, but others did, and the slow pressure increase with the sudden pressure drop kills ANY bug. I dont care how "super" the pathogen is, an autoclave will kill it.
funny part is that keyboards do not last past 5 runs in the device. something about all that heat does bad things to the plastic. but Cherry keyboards were able to survive at least 3 runs.
and yes, we tested it. No bugs after wiping with a sterile swab and trying to incubate it for 48 hours.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Someone just needs to invent a keyboard that is completely sealed. Not only would this prevent things like crumbs, dust, and hair from getting inside the keyboard and fouling it up, but it means you could just submerge the whole dang thing in alcohol or run it through the dishwasher to clean it. Sounds like hospitals and certain other environments would buy something like that right up.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
You mean j, k, l, ;
Where are your home keys then?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
This is a problem easily solved with a model M and a dishwasher.
-Peter
last time I went to comp usa they had $10. keyboards, and I'm sure you could get them for less in bulk. if it takes 20 min to mess with each cover, you would save money by jsut throwing them away and putting in new cheapies.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
This is actually what I believe. There's various studies out there that suggest that growing up in a more rural environment will tend to produce less allergenic and breathing problems in later life. The belief is that the constant exposure to dust, seeds, animal dander and hair, etc. that is more common in a rural setting will actually teach the body to not treat these (relatively) harmless materials as hazardous and trigger allergenic or asthmatic responses.
The same could be said of bacteria and such. We're now beginning to realize that treating every infection or virus (say a cold) with antibiotics will in fact, over time, make the bug more resistant to the drugs. A lot of people belive this is why the so called flesh-eating disease is so resistant to anti-biotics. Its been exposed to them all before.
Remember folks, our parents and grandparents didn't have $brandName anti-bacterial wipes to clean up after cutting raw chicken, and they didn't die from salmonella either. Simple precautions such as washing your hands with soap (don't spend extra on the anti-bacterial crap) regularaly. Don't rub your eyes or pick your nose after being in contact with questionable objects.
Simple hygene can actually prevent a surprising number of infections.
If you can sterilize your table, you can sterilize your keyboard.
Projection Keyboards
These would be great in areas with communial computers.
In the early '90s I was a support tech for a university which shall remain nameless (ok, Illinois). Working at home one Saturday, I managed to spill a tiny bit of coffee on my laptop keyboard. Ok, so it was a cupful.
Not wanting to be known as the idiot who spilled coffee on his laptop, I got a blow drier and dried off the keyboard. It fused the 'f' and 'g' keys together.
After the Dell guy quit laughing, he grudgingly replaced my keyboard. I think they didn't want to give one of their machines to someone with a demonstrably high Klutz rating.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I just tried your suggestion, and now my laptop won't boot up. Please advise.
obfuscated link, anti-slash troll.
How about these projection keyboards? The ones that project the keyboard to a dry, flat surface and then sensors detect which is pressed? I'm sure I have seen these for the palm handhelds, anyone know if they are actually any good?
I wasn't picking it, I was SCRATCHING it...
I typically have problems with these keys:
Alt + F4
and
Ctrl + Alt + Del
And sometimes that key with the funny looking square flag that has a cross in the middle. It's right next to the Alt button.
The other keys seem to be fine.
Live forever, or die trying.
I knew one hospital that would regularly incinerate keyboards that were at a high risk of contamination, or that were known to be contaminated (like spilled blood).
The article said something about the hospital just throwing them away, but if they thought there was any serious contamination (other than a common germ that will die in 24 hours) they would be treated as medical waste and disposed of more properly.
Never ever touch someone elses rumble-rod... Its a strange pen shaped device with force feedback.
What about using ultraviolet light to disinfect the keyboards? Maybe a cover for the keyboard which has UV lights on it. On another note, what about bathroom door handles?
Get a plastic "keyboard condom" that you can get wet, or get one of those waterproof rollable keyboards. Set up a squirt bottle next to it that when you're done mists a little bit of alcohol on it. Or better yet, let it be automagic.
I don't see a problem here. The hospitals just dont want to spend the extra $$ so they're griping about it. Dump the shiny dell/hp/ibm/whatever keyboard and get something that's somewhat disinfectible.
= Grow a brain...
remember those keyboard covers? I bet those would be easier to steralize than others (ie wash it every day, etc)
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
At my first job there seemed to be an unusually large number of people with warts (and lots of them) on their hands. At least five people in a company of less than 25. Surprise surprise: I started getting warts on my hands within 18 months. Warts are of course caused by a virus.
I ended up with about 30 of them. It took more than a year of nasty chemicals and liquid N2 treatment by a dermitologist before my immune system finally kicked and the warts went away. He seemed to think that they were particularly virulent and hardy. I strongly suspect I was infected from keyboards. They have to be the dirtiest nastiest things in an office. I'm glad I work from home these days and only sit down at other people's computers via RDP/VNC/pcAnywhere/WebEx.
Malc
Well, at least on a couple more keys, anyway.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'd have guessed 'yes.' I had to deploy a computer once in a 'flock line' which is where they put that fuzzy crap on polyethylene ribbon for Christmas. Looks oh so festive but it gets old when you bathe in it; it's essentially nylon fibers that are a couple thousandths of an inch high and the shit goes EVERYWHERE while you're processing it. It's itchy, too.
Anyway, the machine was in a filtered enclosure and the monitor had a keyboard condom on it. Problem solved. Dunno why the same thing wouldn't work for hospitals.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
My workplace doesn't have enough PC's to go around so we share computers. I always hate using the PC after someone who is coughing and sneezing into his hands in the midst of typing on the keyboard.
Just spray your keyboard down with it, when you go to get your morning coffee. It'll be dry when you get back. Hopefully. Even if it isn't, you shouldn't be putting your fingers in your mouth, without washing them first. Or anytime, for that matter.
VOTE!
They still don't know how harmless most germs are? Give me a freaking break... I could have HIV, lick the keys on the keyboard, and you wouldn't get a damn thing. And people are worried about a few stupid 'bugs' that by in large, are harmless and do nothing to cause any sickness.
The only problem here is that people need to stop being germophobes. As George Carlin says, if you avoid all contact with germs, you will have no resistance to them when you actually get 'bit'. So grow the hell up, stop complaining, and if you're a dirty bastard, then get more clean so at least your keyboard LOOKS clean. If you want to get a microscope on the keys on my keyboard fine, but I'd ask you to put that same microscope on your socks, your clothes, whatever... and you'll see how many germs you ACTUALLY come into contact with.
Your keyboard's 'bugs' will be suprisingly few in number.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Well younguns, sit down there by the fire, as I have a story to tell you.
Years ago, keyboards were big, heavy, and and made with buckling springs. I'm, in fact, typing on one right now and you may be able to find one of your own, but there pretty damn rare now.
Anyway, in the old days when some unfortuate lad poured coffee (or beer) into their keyboard you could just throw the entire keyboard into the bath with some mild detergent, swish it around, and hang it on the line to dry for a few days. You could use a hair dryer if you were in a hurry.
Well, let me tell you. We once had a whole batch of "dead" BS keyboards that we had been collecting over time (being busy and not having time to properly bath them as they came into the service area). One day the service manager was scratching his big bald head, wondering if he should just throw them all out when he was struck by an idea.
Yep, he put them all into one of the company's dishwashers. Added a little dishwasher detergent and put it on the normal cycle.
Well, those keyboards came out just like they was brand spankin new. And they worked just fine (after they had dried off, that is).
Perhaps those hospitals could try that. Personally, I wouldn't unless they are still using old BS keyboards as I doubt that these modern high-tech flimsy things would stand up to the ordeal.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Why can't I just spray Lyson on it?
Why don't they make disposable use-once covers or require disposable gloves when using the keyboard?
Mark
They've only been around for a few decades. Completely encase it, then you can dump bleach on it.
You don't even have to lose the feel of the keyboard like you would with a touchscreen type solution.
The local pizza joint uses some kind of flat translucent rubber keyboard with no moving parts. It can survive flour, water, or tomato sauce with a quick wipe-off. Although it's an elegent and cheap solution, I'm sure the health care industry will fork over millions of dollars to develop some method of enclosing the ancient PC-XT-AT-whatever connected keyboards they use now to the ancienter host running vaccum tubes under the desk.
Perhaps they could submerge a rubber keyboard in a shallow tray of anit-bacterial hand gel. Your finger tips would rest in 1/4" of gel while you typed. When you were done typing, you could just rub your hands togeather and the gel would evaportate. 'Course, whatever survives that environment would be a mega-super-duper-bug! And then what would we do, submerge our fingers in a shallow tray of weak acid?
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
hjkl are the ancient "cursor keys" from before there were cursor keys. They're still used in old-fashioned programs like nethack and vi.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
This is in no way limited to keyboards.
In the early 90'ies, I worked for a computing department for a university that ran a help desk. They noticed that employees were getting sick all the time. They changed policies, and made everyone who worked the help desk bring their own phone handset, and the illnesses decreased.
The moral of the story is that germs can infect anything we touch, and so don't share things many people need to use. Or buy appropriate hardware / cleaning systems to handle it.
It seems to me that having a relatively low-intensity UV light projected on the keyboard, or perhaps just flashing an irregular intervals, would kill the germs.
Reminds me of a line from a high-ranking officer in Bush Sr.'s Iraq war; when bombing bunkers suspected of holding anthrax, they would attack early in the morning on a clear, still day; the sunlight destroys the spores. (And it's safer than using nukes!)
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
It's still wet. Put it in the clothes dryer for a cycle or two, and you should be all set. Good luck!
Can you imagine the hardiness of the critters living on the Blarney Stone?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I have a "virtually indestructible" keyboard. It's rollable, light blue rubber, water proof, and if it ever gets dirty (spilled soup, etc) I can chuck the whole thing in the sink and scrub it. No nooks/crannies, just 101 waterproof keys.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Have you tried cleaning the keyboard inside? I don't mean any microscopic-level germs, I mean good old visible large-size crud.
On most keyboards you can push out separate keys by inserting a flat screwdriver under the key and using it as a lever -- due to the way keyboards are built, you'll be able to insert it back without inflicting any damage.
The amount of crud is astonishing. A thick layer of fluff is mandatory, but you can expect a number of larger objects as well.
My personal record is a 20x5x5mm big piece of carrot that my father pulled ~20 years ago from a keyboard we kids used at the time. I was ~7 so my memory can suffer from the fisherman's disease, but how the carrot could get between the cracks is beyond me.
The fluff consists mostly of hair, dust and pieces of skin tissue. This is a bacteria haven, and if you throw in some foodstuffs as well, the result can be dangerous in a hospital.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I used to do contract work for a lot of dentists and doctors, most of them already had a thin film of some sort that they put on the KB, and they also put them on the touchpads. The touchpads were easy to keep clean. I have noticed that now that I stay pretty much in one place, I do not get nearly as sick as often as I used to. I used to get sick 4-5 times a year, but now it is very seldom. I used to see many people cough/sneeze into their hand, and then use that same hand to move the mouse. I used to carry hand sanitizer with me, but i dont think it worked that well.
Rubber Keyboardsu t/5a7f/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/inp
Pine Sol
http://www.pinesol.com/faq_spray.shtml
Ok, so they use a more industrial strength cleaner at hospitals. I demonstrate the nastiness of a user's keyboard (if they question it) by turning it upside down and banging a few times. The black crust that falls out is typically more than enough to convince them to buy a new keyboard/change their habbits.
Do the same to a few hospital presidents and viola, solution will be made. Probably much more expensive than $30 a unit though.
About 25 years ago I was the Sysadmn + Chief Cook and Bottle washer for a system in a Pathology Lab. It took real time data from all of the medical equipment that the lab used to test your blood. The lab in a hospital is where the sickest parts of the sickest people are brought to. The Doctor who ran the lab forced my company to by a second set of tools and software that never left the lab. I washed the hell out of my hands everytime I left that place. The rule we used was, once it went into the lab, it never came out except as medical waste to be burned or what ever they did with that stuff.
73 49 111 01001001
I almost never get sick. Maybe once every two to three years. And when I do, it lasts half as long as with most people. Our immune systems don't want to be laid off, people. They will strike out in odd ways if they don't have real nasties to fight.
Besides that, all this preoccupation with sterility is going to lead to even worse strains of super bugs that even I can't cope with, and then what good will all that eating bugs and playing in dirt have been? I swear, if I ever see anyone using any of that sanitizing crap in public I'm going to knock it out of their hands and cough all over them.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The MS Natural Keyboard is $40. Every six months I trash mine and get a new one.
... [insert cleaning agent company here].
It might be a new spin on the story story by using an epidemiologist in a hospital, but it has all the hallmarks of the "dangerous germs found in public places" myth (and killed by [insert brand name here.])
What they fail to mention is this obsession with sterilizing everything in the home is actually breeding superbugs that eat [brand name] for breakfast, just like overuse and misuse of antibiotics and breeding the antibiotic-resistant superbugs mentioned in the article. The fact that keyboards are germ-heaven should be irrelevant if medical staff are performing the correct hygiene procedures.
The Mythbusters did an interesting test of the "potty mouth toothbrushes" myth, which alleges that toilet water aerosols contaminate toothbrushes. Even their control toothbrushes, never used in a different room, contained (shock, horror) faecal bacteria in small amounts, but there was no difference between the different toothbrushes in the experiment. Busted!
KENT
Our top story, the population of parasitic tree lizards has exploded, and local citizens couldn't be happier! It seems the rapacious reptiles have developed a taste for the common pigeon, also known as the 'feathered rat', or the 'gutter bird'. For the first time, citizens need not fear harassment by flocks of chattering disease-bags.
Later, Bart receives an award from Mayor Quimby outside the town hall. Several lizards slink past.
QUIMBY
For decimating our pigeon population, and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle.
Skinner talks to Lisa.
SKINNER
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
LISA
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA
But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA
But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Don't use any soap or detergent and make sure it's *completely* dry before plugging it back in.
Tie the cord up so that it doesn't get caught in any moving parts.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
use a washable keyboard cover http://www.viziflex.com/cartexe/index.asp im sure housekeeping could easily swap out the covers every shift and wash them.
having an asthmatic child, I've had the misfortune of spending a few hours in an ER and a night on the Peds' floor.
Yes the computers are everywhere but many are very different that what we'd expect. In the ER, patient histories as well as subsequent log entries are taken on a flat panel monitor mounted on a cart that is wheeled right up to the patient's bedsite in each room and curtain. These PCs had on keyboards. They were touch screen. A keyboard pops up for major typing but much of the interface is just answering questions in context. The nurses frequently wipe down the whole monitor and all the flat surfaces of the cart with what look like screen wipes (but probably are a bit more potent).
Keyboards are super-cheap these days: 10 to 20 bux in singles.
At that price a hospital can afford to replace the keyboards when a new patient is brought into a room, or periodically for things like lab and nurse station equipment.
Some hospitals already do this with telephones. At ten bucks or less for a cheap desk set the hospital includes one with the patient phone service - and lets the patient take it home when they leave (if they didn't have something that would be major-league hazardous to their family.)
The main problem with hospital germs is that they are constantly exposed to cleaning and sterilizing solutions and antibiotics. So hospital surfaces that stick around for years tend to accumulate "superbugs" that are immune to nearly everything. Hospitals fight this by using disposable stuff wherever possible - replacing them before they have a chance to accumulate much or get something growing. Due to their low cost, computer keyboards (and mice) are candidates for this.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why can't they dip the keyboards in alcohol, let them dry, and plug them back in?
My experience with cleaning "dirty" keyboards started waaaay back in the day when I spilled a Big Gulp of Coca-Cola into my Commodore-64, the screen instantly went black, and I had one hour until my mother got home. The Commodore got disassembled, washed, cleaned, dried, and reassembled before she got home - there's nothing like adrenaline to make you work quickly!
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
So the hospital that charges me $10 for an aspirin tablet needs to get as much lifespan as possible out of a $5 keyboard? Why not just have recylclable ones and toss them at the end of every shift/day?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
hop to it here
oh yes..
------
insert sig here,here, and here
Your subject sums up your mistake quite well.
What you're saying is right (to a certain extent) for the standard computer user's environment. But in a hospital, there are some pretty nasty germs around. Think about TBC, for example. Or MRSA. Combine that with a "population" of, by definition, very sick people with a weakened immune defence and you might begin to understand why hospitals have to worry about hygiene, on keyboards just as much as everywhere else. Especially in isolation wards or in intensive care units, were the patients' bodies are busy wrestling with death, the last thing you want to have floating around are the antibiotics-resistant germs from the guy in the adjacent box.
Yes, I have worked in hospitals.
Silly golgofrinchans... I forget... Did they do kindergartern? Doesn't anybody wash their freakin' hands anymore??? I swear I must do so 5 to 20 times a day depending upon how many different people's pc's I need to use. Instant hand sanitizer sho be do comin' in handy as well, especially when I'm headed to a PC I KNOW is super funky!
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Since you can find bulk keyboards for cheap ($5.00 or less in quantity), why not just go through once a week and replace all the keyboards. The 10-20 seconds it takes to replace a keyboard has to be MUCH less expensive than the 15-30 minutes it takes to clean them out (properly). Of course, this doesn't even count the amount of time recovered from people not getting sick from the keyboards.
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
H, J, K, and L what game is that? The only keys I ever use are
R, W, E
A, S, D
Z, X, C
And V, 2, 1 - V, 2, 2
I need a medic! I need ammo!
Immune system getting stronger. Probably, if you're only in contact with the easy stuff.
But in a hospital, they have some pretty strange stuff floating around that the body has NO DEFENCE against. Norwalk, SARS, and other things like that are pretty brutal, and near impossible to be immune to given the possible concentrations they would see in such an office environment.
Just make sealed keyboards, and get everyone used to the different feel to them. Problem solved.
Live forever, or die trying.
A simple solution would be to have non-mechanical keyboards. There are keyboards out there that have pressure sensors like a track pad rather than keys that depress. Since these have a flat surface and no crevices to worry about, sterilization should be simple. Many users complain of trouble using them at first, particularly slower typing speeds. Once you get used to the new feel though, you should have a higher theoretical maximum typing speed.
I suggest spraying it with automotive ether-based starting fluid before you put it in the dryer. That'll help it dry quicker. And if the dryer sparks, your computing will reach great new heights!
and handles like an 18 wheel truck entering the chicane.
Investment protective buyers of powerbooks have done this for ages:t p://www.protectcovers.com/. com/kecoareforne.html. com/product_info.php/pr oducts_id/795
http://www.compucover.com/KS_Info.html
ht
http://www.welovemacs
http://thinkdifferentstore
Can sanitise the skins with peroxide or the likes. Or toss them after a while.
2c
Any high traffic area, especially where you put your hands, is going to be more dirty then, say, a bookshelf.
This just in: Toilets are full of crap until flushed.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
These superbugs are hiding under the scroll lock key. These bugs are smart and they know where to party. Although some are not smart enough that in some notebooks, the Insert key and the Scroll lock is the same. They also call Space bar the hell hole.
Obviously if it works in the future it should work now. We just need flat glass surfaces that have the painted buttons on them. Add lots of LEDs, and not only would you not contract super bugs, but you could also score with hot alien girls!
Point taken, I guess I was responding in part to the germophobes that are /.ers as well.. plenty of comments have echoed this. Hospitals could definately use a higher level of sterility, though since mostly administration and staff uses the keyboard, I don't see how patients could come into contact with any type of threatening germs.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
You can do better by typing with two fingers. Only 1/5 the germs. :)
The trouble with the fingerworks is that it has to do rather a lot of processing. I owned one for a while, had to sell it. If you type faster than 60 wpm, it just can't keep up.
If you type very quickly, the keyboard can't tell the difference between your keystrokes. It's not sure whether you pressed two keys at the same time or one key in the middle of the two.
What's so frustrating about this is that it will figure it out *on screen.* It will actually send the letter it thinks you pressed when your finger hits the first key, then hitting the second key will cause it to reprocess, send a backspace to erase the letter on screen, and put up the new letter it thinks both presses represent. Infuriating.
If you type less than 60 WPM, it's probably dandy. If you type more like 100 WPM it's completely useless.
It's also rather too narrow. Very uncomfortable for people with broad shoulders.
H, J, K, and L what game is that?
These are used by Nethack, an insanely difficult (and great) Roguelike computer game.
I need a medic! I need ammo!
Howdy, fellow ET player..
and gather all the SuperFriends you can - it's party time!
...
seriously, though, it's a good thing we wash our hands a lot here at the labs
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I was contemplating the other day that if the control systems of Vi and Emacs were crossed, you'd end up with something a lot like Nethack. Heck, half the challenge of the game is learning all the commands!
I can see the wave of new homework excuses hitting classrooms around the nation:
Oh I had my homework, really. I wanted to type it up to look nice, but then all those evil viruses crawled out from the keyboard and...and...it was just ghastly...oh I can't bear to continue...*sniffle*
The problem is the environment, not the items in it. Hospitals unfortunately house sick patients with multiply-drug-resistant infections. The antibiotics flow like a mighty river... only the toughest bugs survive (and survive they do!).
There was a recent study (can't recall the journal it was in) where they cultured doctors' neckties... they were able to culture all sorts of nasty, drug-resistant organisms.
I am a physician, and I never wear a tie to work (I won't work somewhere where they force ER docs to wear ties)... I only wear scrubs, and get a new set every day... the old ones get washed before they're worn again. I also wash my hands a hundred times a day, and even clean my stethosope with alcohol (admittedly, brief exposure to alcohol doesn't really sterilize anything... but I feel better doing it... how's that for being dogmatic?).
Infection spread is a reality in the hospital. You try to prevent it, but it happens, and off of ANY surface, not just keyboards. Unfortunately, these bugs are out in the community as well... most of the MRSA I see walks right in the front door, often in young people who have never spent a day in the hospital.
And if you're one of those folks who always insists on some antibiotics to "knock out this cold," then you're contributing to this problem.
Don't get mad at me when I refuse to prescibe antibiotics for your viral illness. This is going to sound patronizing, but it's actually for your own good, and helps keep the drugs effective for when you really need them.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Since you can't feel the keys, you have to be looking at the keyboard to use it. The last time I had to type on such a keyboard, with no "tactile feedback", was on an old Timex Sinclair 1000.
It was neither a fun nor pleasant experience.
environments anyway, in my opinion. The problem is not just their keyboards either! Gee... Now I don't see a problem with them in hospital offices, those don't have to be sterile. As long as there is proper hygiene where needed... what's the big deal?
Fellowes and others solved this problem a long time ago. These types of keyboard covers can be sterilized and placed over the keyboard. This is the same method that is used in operating rooms and dentist's offices for things like the light fixture. Strangely you can't pour bleach in those either. But putting sterile plastic bags over the handles, prior to each use, seems to work quite well.
Another possible solution, which I have far less faith in, is these Microban keyboards that Fellowes also sells. These are made with an anti-microbial coating that supposedly kills on contact. I really can't see it lasting and I am reasonably confident it is little more than a marketing ploy.
One thing is for sure. From the microbial aspect, keyboards in hospitals should be the least of your concerns. <shudder>Ever looked in the corner of an operating room? </shudder>
Would it be too difficult to ask/require the hospitol workers to use gloves while typing or would that be too novel?
From the looks of this keyboard in front of me, I might want to follow my own advice.
Another solution could be to run the (pre-membrane) keyboards through the dishwasher (and perhaps wait a week before they completely dry). If they don't have too much electronics in them, like USB ports and whatnot, they'll do fine once they (finally) dry out. Not that that would be practical for many institutions.
Heck, I'd do the same to this one, except I'm afraid of what I might bring home with me.
dont care how "super" the pathogen is, an autoclave will kill it.
I know I'm being pedantic, but autoclaves don't kill everything... they don't "kill" prions. Then again, prions aren't actually bugs. However, I don't think prions hide out in your keyboard... unless you've been eating people's brains raw and the didn't wash your hands before using your keyboard.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Just get an Atari 400. They have membrane keyboards that you can clean off with Clorox wipes. They're immune to all the latest Internet viruses/worms too!
Alright, I have to get back to playing Star Raiders...
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Rigtht on. Good stuff you two replied in. /the original post was meant to be 5+ funny...
Don't you mean the a, s, d, f keys? Most guys jerk off with their left hand.
Step 1: USe industrial sealed membrane keyboards. They'll last forever, and are water proof. Need to disinfect? Spray with Lysol or scrubbing bubbles. There is a reason why membrane keyboards are also used on machines that produce food products. You can clean them!
Step2: While I can't see the CPU fans, etc, not collecting anything already NOT in the environmet, if you are worried about them, go for a fanless relatively sealed system.
This is not really surprising, since last time I checked, most bugs were in fact created using keyboards.
Now that's handy between rounds at the hospital.
DOCTOR - "I just finished giving rectal exams and entering the results in the lone computer here at our station. Now I'm going to get a cup o' coffee. Want to join me?"
CO-WORKER - "Nah, that's alright. I'm going to go ahead and remove all the keys off all of the keyboards we use, rinse them in soapy water, dry them thoroughly, and then put them back in the correct order. Shouldn't take too long or anything. I'll catch up with you later."
Now accepting PayPal donations!
I recommend a steam cleaner such as Euro Pro Shark. No gern can suvive being blasted with boiling hos steam. Naturally, the keyboard must be unplugged when you so this, and allowed to dry completely.
How ya like dat?
Maybe they should start manufacturing keyboards that are pretty much touch-screen like, and whenever each doctor is done, simply have them press a different button, and the whole keyboard surface is automatically wiped and desterilized, on the spot.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
When I was in elementary school we did a biology experiment involving agar jel. We would take a q-tip and rub it on an object in the classroom, then swipe it over some agar jel in a petri dish. Being the geek that I am, I chose the classroom's computer keyboard.
After a few days we took them out of the cabinet and put them on the overhead projector. My dish was BY FAR the nastiest.
Brain kills internet cells.
</heloise>
They're just saving some board chow for a busy day... :)
Jokes aside, one of my friends had a bucket of water poured onto his Dell laptop last summer (the result of a badly-aimed pratical joke). We thought it was totally screwed, so wiped it down and basically took everything that was semi-user-servicable out (battery, drive bays, pc cards, memory). After it sat for a few hours and dryed up, it was able to boot and has been working normally since.
It should be noted that it's not the water that kills devices, it's the water shorting out contacts that kills it. As long as you don't try to run it while it's on, it should survive. His was actually on when it happened, and turned off immediately, so I guess that part was just luck that it didn't fry anything.
Speak before you think
Take those skins that they have for keyboards. Make them as cheap as latex gloves and slap a new one on every so often(after every use if you're really frightened).
:-D
Anyone want to fund an up and coming medical company???
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
I found it took weeks to get the Amulet of Yendor out of the dungeon in NetHack. I imagine it takes a bit less time to get it out of Emacs.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
My keyboard is attacking me... OMG my keyboard got my ha...
Yeah but try typing on the thing...
Joking aside, I'm one of those people that can't type on anything that doesn't provide solid mechanical feedback. Laptop keyboards are bad enough, let alone rubbery keys that give no indication of being pressed properly; I just get frustrated. But then again I not that much of a typist anyway...
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
What a great idea, especially given today's abundant supply of cheap petroleum.
they are constantly exposed to cleaning and sterilizing solutions and antibiotics
When bacteria begin to resist dying when exposed to things like Triclosan, sodium hypochlorite, then we should start to worry. In the meantime, the real problem is frequent overprescription and patient misuse of antibiotics.
We will never eradicate bacteria and viruses because, whoops, I just inhaled some while typing this. Whoops, another one just got into my bloodstream, through that tiny cut on my finger. They are our ancestors, after all, and they have demonstrated some skill at adapting and not becoming extinct. For the past 3-4 billion years, on this planet, anyway.
Our immune systems are pretty good at preventing catastrophic infections as a result of exposure, at least to common pathogens. We (humans) need to get better fast at developing vaccines and understanding our own immune systems, in general. We need to work on ways to strengthen and optimize our own internal defenses rather than constantly trying to eliminate something as tenacious and ubiquitous as germs from our environment.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
The purity of the water should also be taken into account. Distilled water doesn't conduct electricity. However, I'm sure it would collect stuff from contact with the internal circuit boards and such, but perhaps not enough to conduct electricity well enough to short anything out.
The last time I was at the hospital I watched a nurse check a patient, take some notes with a pen and put the pen back in her pocket. I would think a keyboard would be the least of my concerns when compared to a clipboard or a pen. I hope the nurse doesn't chew on then pen like some people do!
Reason #32767 not to use VB6: Integers are 2 bytes... Think about it!
I prefer to clean mine at the carwash... the only problem is that it's a bit hard to find Svinto in the United States.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I guess I suck at Nethack -- been playing (on and off) for years, and have never ascended..
Anyhow, if they sold keyboards made of that, I suspect that a lot of people would want them, not just hospitals.
And sometimes that key with the funny looking square flag that has a cross in the middle. It's right next to the Alt button.
Keyboards which don't have that button seem to have far fewer problems with viral infections. You can buy computers with these obviously superior keyboards at www.apple.com
Better yet, you can get keyboards without that key by hunting around anywhere that has older electronics; the dumpster out back of an office, for example. And, as I've found out, these old keyboards, with a blank space where that unfathomable flag-windows thingy normally is and often a label with the letters "I", "B" and "M" on it . . . well, from my trials they seem to smash those fruity ones with that fruit-key to pieces! Now that is an obviously superior keyboard, they seem to win the deathmatch every time.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
And netris and robotfindskitten...
I am ashamed to have missed that reference, and more so to have corrected it.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Great for the hypocondriacs among us, or just people who like to spill things and generally do disgusting things by their computers. If Howard Hughes had a computer, he definitely would have had a rubber keyboard.
Some forms of Human Papilloma Virus are classed as STDs (and some are highly carcinogenic). Perhaps somebody at the office was doing something interesting in the course of obtaining them?
In any case, encourage all the women around you to stay current on their PAP smears - HPV is especially risky for them.
Both VRE and MRSA survived on a keyboard 24 hours after contamination, according to the study.
VRE can cause urinary tract infections and infections at the entry sites of intravenous or dialysis lines.
in other words:DO NOT PULL IT AT INTERNET PORN ON A HOSPITAL COMPUTER
Related tale:
I had my first sysadmin gig working for a web company tending the servers running for live, online cam girls. Yes, the little sweeties that lay there on a bed and do a little self touching and you can talk with them in a chat room.
They had a few with audio, but this was 1998, and the shit was buggy - if not buggy, lets say jittery.
Anyway, you'd have to run in and fix a flamingly crashing Windows server or two that was on a rack in the room with the girl (of course, you just had to reboot the goddamn thing) and, in the interest of haste, use the keyboard she was just typing on after she had her fingers in her crotch.
We just kept TITANICALLY LARGE vats of tat disenfectant hand gel at every station, followed by a thorough hand scrubbing.
Man, that was a good gig. I mean, really.
UNRELEATED:I found a really cool pub in London where I can get wireless access. Unfortunately they insist on playing a lot of Alannis Morissette. LIVE Alannis Morissette.
the shit I do to stay connected. fuckin' BT.
Holy Shit, the music just changed to AC/DCs Shoot to Thrill maybe this place ain't so bad after all.
s'wut i sed.
We used to do this with keyboards that had beer spilled in them. It was a PIA but worked every time.
yeah, I wouldn't want to type anything long on it, but it's good enough for quakeII, and (afaik) most hospital users are in the hunt and peck category. I hear ya on the mechanical feedback though. Speaking of which, has anyone seen the new Dell keybs that are pretty much all keys? The keyboard pretty much ends where the keys end, it's nice and small, it looks cool (for a keyb) and the keys have the perfect mix of soft resiliency. I don't know what they come with but the one I use is hooked up to a Dell Optiplex GX280.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
I thought the Windows boxes that the keyboards get plugged into are the havens for super bugs.
PtPete
I don't think there's much that can survive being blasted by steam from a boiling ho.
Keyboards are Havens for Super Bugs
Of course. I guarantee that every bug I've ever written came into being because of my keyboard. Take away my keyboard and I'd stop producing bugs.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
But I thought we were the ape-like decendants of telephone sanitizers. Shouldn't cleaning the keyboard be instinctual?
#include <signature.h>
The fact that keyboards and mice harbor bacteria is not new. My freshman year we performed an experiment on bacteria cultivation: common areas/things were swiped and the results of the swipes were grown in petri dishes. As a result, we found out that mice and keyboards had more bacteria that toilet lids. Why? Because toilets were cleaned on a daily basis as opposed to common articles, such as keyboards, pens, pencils, etc. This brings me to a totally different point: why are keyboards are so fucking hard to clean?
I have yet to find a perfect keyboard that costs less than $300 and has two things: good ergonomics for my wrists and is easy to clean on a daily basis. So far, I found only one item that satisfied this, TouchStreamLP. This keyboard is sold out almost everywhere despite its hefty price tag of more than $300. It does not have conventional keys (hence touch), so it is easy to clean it. It also happens to be ergonomic and supports multiple schemes for emacs users :)
Exactly.
:)
When I started working two days a week at an elementary/middle school, (if you think hospital computers are bad, try computer lab computers after a school-full of grade-schoolers has been sneezing on them all day) I would get sick maybe once every 3-4 months, despite any amount of hand-washing, etc. After about a year of that, it tapered off, and damn near nothing will get me sick anymore. About the only thing that will is catching something from my housemate - and the bug that keeps him home for a week will just put me a bit under the weather for half a day.
So be sure to take your vitamins.. and your germs.
Had to look that one up.
:
From
Acronym Definition
MRSA - Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus
MRSA - Market Research Society of Australia
MRSA - Materiel Readiness Support Activity (US Army)
MRSA - Midland Railway Signalman's Association
MRSA - Seaman Apprentice, Machinery Repairman Striker (Naval Rating)
I guess you were talking about the first one.
My other UID is 1337
Why is it only the keys under your right hand are dirty? :)
They need to make these things autoclavable.
So were the thrown-out keyboards at least "destroyed" via bio-hazard methods? Afterall, they were technically releasing a known, futile, and medication-resistant strain of bacteria into the wild.
Another thought that passed through my mind is, when you buy a keyboard off eBay, how many of you have actually removed the keys, thrown them in the dishwasher, and scrubbed the rest of the board with disinfectant? I bought a Model M keyboard one year from a guy outside the US and it came packed in an old moving box and wrapped with newspaper ads from a local fried chicken joint. Yummy.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
I have a spray bottle of alcohol that I spray down anything I want sterilized. No chemicals for them to resist, just alcohol. How hard is that? Unless you're like trying to kill cryptosporidium? Or what about a mix of bleach and alcohol (not sure of the chemical reactions that might happen then) so the water fromt he blech is evaporated quickly...
I've got one of those, they're really nice - once you get the hang of typing on it. It's awesome for LAN parties though - it's the easiest thing in the world to transport (roll it up and throw it in the bag/stick in your pocket), and you can impress everone by draping it over your monitor.
Most military systems have keyboards that can be decontaminated (ie rubber keys and environmentally sealed) - okay they're not the greatest to type on for hours at a time but they do the job...
Why not use those style keyboards so they can be cleaned easily?
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
All they have to do is to look to the industry or your local McDonalds for proper keyboards. They use flat keyboards that are easy to clean and doesnt have orifices where things can accumulate. I think this isnt as much a problem as it is an excellent example of "didnt think about that!".
Keyboards are not worse than door handles, handle bars or any other surface that many different people touch everyday.
HTTP/1.1 400
Use Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide under non-condensing conditions to sterilize most electronic equipment without damage even after numerous exposures. Even zaps Anthrax.
IIRC (it's been years) I summoned a demon which ate the wizard then I turned it to stone.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I you need to use a keyboard that is in an area in which hazardous stuff is in use, i.e. chemicals, tissue, germs, or if you are just worried about germs, wear disposable latex gloves. http://www.walgreens.com/search/search_results.jht ml?term=latex+gloves§ion=A
Cheep, easy and safe. If the keyboard is dirty, chuck it and buy a new one. Just an observation from someone who worked in a place that if you used the wrong keyboard without gloves, you risked getting cancer or worse.
I work in a research lab. However, unlike the idiots who autoclave or spray ethanol on their keyboards, I actually know how to completely sterilize one. It's not unlike the way they handled the anthrax scare. Remember all that plastic sheeting over the buldings? It's actually exactly the way they sterilize a laminar flow biological hood, used in work with potentially infectious materials. You put the keyboard in an airtight container significantly larger than the keyboard. Then, you ignite some formaldehyde in the container. After a while or overnight, you vent the formaldehyde into the fume hood, and run clean air through the container to purge it. Hospitals could even have this set up in conveyor belt fashion. The cost of scrubbing exhaust would go up dramatically, but that's the way to do it. Now that I think of it, perhaps using a radiation source would be more efficient. Of course, proper handwashing would be the easiest way to reach the same results, but that's treating the symptoms, not the underlying cause, right?
You are correct about pathogens and immunity, however allergies are quite different than pathogens. The immune system fights pathogens, however the immune system is what causes allergies. They are an overreaction to foreign sustances entering the body.
Growing up around allergens often causes allergies. The body, having been genetically predisposed to certain allergies will cause the immune system to attack allergens that it comes into contact with.
Allergies are caused by the immune system, rather than prevented by it. Thus, it is better for children not to be exposed to possible allergens until later in childhood.
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
Eventually the solution will be voice recognition software that really works. It's not perfect yet, but it is getting better. I don't know how long it will take to perfect, but it will be perfected one day.
For the time being, they should just replace the keyboards on a regular schedule. Lord knows they charge enough that they could buy any keyboards they wanted.
The A+ Cerification exam textbooks actually suggest that you can put your keyboard in the dish washer. I was skeptical at first, but I tried it and it works. Just had to wait for the keyboard to dry thoroughly. (I had to assume that they meant the modern kinds of keyboards with membranes rather than the very old kinds with capacitors in them.)
Use a silver-plated keyboard. Natural antiseptic/antibiotic.
Cheers!
i do this when i'm bored, but you should see all the gunk that comes out when i use the airduster and blow into the crevices on my keyboard. dust, food crumbs, hair, etc all get blown out.
then when i'm feeling bored, i'll pop out every key, soak it in rubbing alcohol and clean all the grease and stains off it. sometimes i dont think it's worth it since i can get a pretty decent new keyboard for only $5 to $10.
HD Trailers
Techguy666 writes .....
Anyone else find that a bit odd given the topic of the story?
http://www.shackifieds.com/abrasion/pics/keyboard/ IMG_4105.jpg
Microsoft Internet keyboard pro (amazing how MS makes such GOOD hardware, shame about the software)
Course they discontinued that model and only have those ones with THEIR new k/b format on them - mother !@$!@ers.
Real men don't need markings on their keboards. They paint their keyboards some neutral color so the quiche eaters stay away from their machines.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
That would be the h, t, n and s buttons, you insensitive clod! (dvorak)
Take off every 'ZIG' !!
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Did we suddenly stop manufacturing those soft, clear rubber keyboard covers?
"The difficulty with keyboards is you can't pour bleach on them," Dr. Allison McGeer, an infection control specialist from Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, tells The Canadian Press. "They don't work so well when you do that.''
The difficulty with corporate thinking is that you need to invent a Star Trek touch panel for $988.45 per keyboard instead of buying a $0.50 cover and just changing them daily or weekly. Bleach works fine on it.
A lot of the problems with salmonella come from a different source, though. Modern industrial food-handling processes provide a much better environment for spreading bacteria than traditional methods. Your grandparents cut up a raw chicken that they either killed themselves, or bought from somone who had killed it somewhere nearby, not long before. Modern chickens are killed en masse in an assembly line that processes many per day. Despite efforts to control it, bacteria grow in that environment and contaminate the meat.
Similarly, it was pretty common at one time for people to eat raw eggs. One has to be much more careful about that now, since eggs are more likely to contain salmonella due to the way they are handled. The mass production that brings us cheap food does have its drawbacks.
You mean the one where on dark colored keys it looks like a B&W English flag, but on light colored keys looks like a B&W Danish flag?
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
He was very lucky with that.
There are a few small transistors, some found on video cards, that are very susceptable to being burnt out from exposure to regular tap-water with the computer off. Some components can also still have a small electrical charge stored in them for awhile after a computer is shut off as well.
If you are going to wash computer components down, and yes, all computer components are washed before they leave the factory, it's best to do it with de-ionized purified water.
I've see these also used in Auto-shops and Machine/Tooling Shops for years. They need durable keyboards on alot of the now computerized equipment and can't have the keyboards getting disgustingly grimey.
We have on in our food coop; it's used for looking up prices/stock/etc. by members, and it really is great! I can't imagine trying to have a normal keyboard in a place with thousands of people going past it every day...
--LWM
They're actually very handy in a lab environment. At my work there's a computer that's for taking pictures of gels that have been stained with Ethidium Bromide, a very nasty mutagen. (Ethidium Bromide binds to DNA, which makes it both useful and dangerous.) We got one of those washable keyboards so that we could clean it after people contaminated it. I wouldn't be surprised if they're also used in environments were radioactive contamination is a worry.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Infant mortality and life expectancy were both much worse back then. People did in fact die more. And what's more, disease was poorly understood, so a lot of what killed people back then, they didn't even know what it was.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
This is not so true. I am a laptop repair technician and have had to service numerous spilled-on laptops.
Normally what seems to leave a laptop in a non-functioning state is the corrision of surface-mount components on the system board.
Also, water can not short out electrical devices. IIRC pure water itself does not conduct electricity. It is the impurities in the water that cause it to.
- Think for yourself, question authority.-
Hey, there are Anti-Microbial Plastics designed just for this type of thing. www.microban.com Check out the various products that use this tech. Most specifically Fellows uses this plastic in several of their Keyboards, Mice and Mouse Pads. www.fellows.com An another note, I got tired of all the guys in my IT Team catching every bug going around this summer. The best Advice I had was, in addtion to having the team wash their hands as often as possible, provide them with Purell Instant Hand Sanitizer. Went out and got about 20 sample bottles and handed them out. Result: illnesses have dropped off. Really a cheap solution and doesn't dry your hands. I think using both the Hand Sanitizer and the Anti Microbial plastics is the best bet all around. Cheers, Wustoff
This product might provide a solution.....
.
Fellowes Microban (Just click on "Accessories with Microban Protection" in Yellow towards the top left of the site).
Apparently products which have been treated with a chemical called "Microban" actually resists viruses and bacteria from contaminating the surfaces. Its been applied to keyboards, mice and mouse pads. Its not a surface treatment, rather, its been embedded into all the plastic so its doesn't wear or scratch off. The rep has said they're very popular in hospitals
I would personally like to see Consumers Reports (or an independent scientific lab) actually try and report on the product. Until then, I'm still skeptical of how well it works.
(And I would really emphasize that I'm skeptical. The tests mentionned by Fellowes on their site were bought and paid for by Fellowes.)
Unplug it & wash it in the sink!
After reading the article, I was prompted to hunt up a link, and found this...
It glows!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I guess I'll have to quit licking my keyboard whenever I spill coffee on it.
I always thought that was an effective way to clean it up.
But, now I'm gonna die. Oh, woe is me.
It's just Crap.
And your nickname is "Lemmy Caution"? :D
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
...most of them aren't touch-typing with the keyboards in the first place. They're logging patient monitoring data (like Blood Pressure, Temp, etc...) and when they're administering meds... These keyboards would probably work just fine for that purpose- and they can be chemically sterilized, etc. They're largely perfect for the application in question.
In fact, I've been wondering why they haven't used them in this sort of thing before. They're not all that expensive and I'd have been speccing the things if I were the IT staffer planning the buildout of the system. Probably some damn bean counter saying that the machines already have a keyboard and why would they need this extra $20-40 purchase per machine....
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I was with you until this paragraph. You've got this totally confused and oversimplified:
I was going to post the same, but did the rational thing and stopped to look to see if someone beat me to it. You did. You just didn't link to any. So here:
m ber=82&sbcolor=%23FF9966&option=&subcategory=&CatT xt=&optiontxt=Keyboard
:
e =UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-08,GGLD:en&q=keyboard+sk in
http://www.infogrip.com/product_view.asp?RecordNu
And the google search
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&i
In the work place, these things should be mandatory. And mice should be issued new when you start, especially given the fact that a basic two-button PS/2-style mouse can be had for as little as $10 ea (less when purchased in bulk for sure). That, or let people do like I did and go out and purchase their own Trackball Opticals and bring 'em in.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
One has to be much more careful about that now, since eggs are more likely to contain salmonella due to the way they are handled.
Actually, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the *shell* that contains the Salmonella?
I popped my Windows keys off years ago after getting sick of dying in full screen games. Now I can see the grime building up down there, through the empty pits. Dishwasher sounds like a good idea, but for now... Oh well... still vastly improved my online life expectancy. :)
Super bugs ? Bring 'em on...
:)
:)
If my immune system can't cope with them I deserve to make way for a superior mutation.
But in all seriousness the universe will get along just fine without me. "Super bugs" are just Natures way of giving our low level cellular systems a good work out.
And here's you lot thinking humans mattered
You can say we matter when we've been around for a few billion years (like the insects
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Dictation software is much more accurate than it used to be.
The right answer to getting a safe keyboard is keyboard condoms and spraying with disinfectant... replace the condoms when they get discolored or start cracking.
These things have been out for years and years and years and in a workplace where a keyboard is public or used by more than one worker, there's really no excuse for not using them.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Projection Keyboard The keyboard is made of light projected on any flat hard surface. This would be as bug proof as it can get.
Get a free ipod.
It's the a, s, d, and f keys I worry about. They're my home row, since I'm a righty.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.
Capacitors keep their charge, so you might want to be careful with anything that has them -- they could short out. If anyone has tips to safely wash electronics, let's hear them.
In Soviet Russia, computer gives virus to *you!*
No ...
p g
http://www.vulcho.com/images/fun/linux_keyboard.j
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
super-germ keylords.
give it some "rubbers" and clean the rubbers once a day or something.
Or have a UV lamp sterlize the keyboard every hour....
they're OK for the occasional typing, seriously, I got one and was pleasantly surprised by how well you can feel the keys click when pressed.
I wouldn't use it as my main keyboard, but I guess it depends how much they use it and how important it is to have it germ free...
TODO: 753) write sig.
I worked for a little while in the Intel PC factory (Hillsboro, OR) in the 1990's. The keyboards were totally dirty; nearly brown with finger grease stain.
Everyone working at the facility was a perma-temp (a person hired through a temp agency with no benefits, no health care, no vacation, ect... doing the same job as a real Intel employee for years) and we were all scared of getting fired for any imagined chickenshit offense. No one would clean the keyboards for years.
Since then the state of the keyboard grime level is one 'secret' way that I use to evaluate a company. If the 'employees' are so intimated by the possibility of arbitary firing that no one will clean the keyboards or the company won't allocate a 59 cent bottle of rubbing alchool for this purpose, then you probably don't want to work there for too long.
By the way, if you work in a production facility, don't forget to wipe the equipment with rubbing alchool before use. For example, microscope eyepieces, telephone headsets (both mouthpiece and ear piece area), and keyboards. If your a temp (and in the USA most production workers are not hired by the companies that they work for) then you have no health insurance, and you will need to take extra precautions to avoid getting sick.
Best of luck, and welcome to the third world.
You're halfway there: half the stuff that actually comes in contact with a patients is one-time use, then discarded for incineration as medical waste. Instead of taking the time to clean the covers, have them incinerated with the rest of the medical waste.
Replacing them with every shift, though not perfect, is better than the current setup.
Think that's too costly? A cover with an 8-hour life could just be made from thin latex / neoprene / Nitrile / polyurathane film. Convince a vendor your ward will use 1000/year, and they might start making them.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Electronics are generally washable.
The strangest keyboard I have uses transformers. Pressing a key moves ferrite into the core. (I'm not making this up.)
echo 33676832766569823265328479713269.8639857989Pq | dc
I have something square, but it's on its side...a diamond, I think. And not in the middle, but to the right....
Silly kids.
One more reason to use the Atari Mind Link
mnewberg.com
cover them in saran wrap. problem solved.
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
Well I spilled lemonade in my laptop keyboard. Maybe water isn't so bad but if you spill juice, replace the keyboard. I can tell you from experience, it doesn't dry in any humane amount of time.
The way to get a sterile keyboard is to use a flat membrane keyboard encased in silicone: they are easy to wipe down. In some cases, you can remove the silicone and sterilize it separately. In a pinch, you can put a wireless keyboard (flat membrane or regular) in a plastic bag.
Another choice is keyboards like these. You can disinfect those with alcohol, although they still have lots of places for bugs to hide. But they may be a reasonable compromise in some environments.
A bucket? That guy was real lucky. Im a Dell Cert. Tech. at an East Coast Uni., and we get alot of work that is basically swapping every component of a laptop down because someone spilled water/beer/vodka/puke all over their laptop and fried it (whether it was on or off). And yup, the expensive dell warranties cover it, as long as you don't mention the water factor...
Call your old friend "Nomad".
:^)
"STER-I-LIZE!"
"Quick Scotty, the anti-gravs!"
+1, Old School Star Trek Reference
Ozone is known to kill bacteria.
Personally, I think that hospitals should have ozone generators inside the building to keep an environment with an amout of Ozone equal to the level you find outdoors after a thunderstorm. There is really no excuse for this not happening.
Maybe one answer is to have keyboards generate the ozone for a room. It could constantly blow a low level of ozone out of the keys, bathing the hands.
Since we evolved from telephone sanitizers cleaning keyboards should be second nature.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
> this research noted that there is a lot of
> computer use in hospitals and they're finding
> it really difficult to sterilize them.
Uhhhhh, why not use those membrane covers that factories use to keep dirt and grease out of the keyboard? Then you can pull it off and wipe it down.
Heck, I'm sure some plastics engineer can come up with a supple one you can throw in the washer. Then it can be changed on regular rounds.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I worked in libraries for five years, specifically dealing with computers, and you would not believe how fast keyboards get covered in filth. At the job where I was the sole geek/admin on the premises, I would regularly take individual kb's and remove each key, dousing them all in Formula 409, and letting the gunk dissolve into a paper towel below it all, before I wiped each key dry and sparkly-clean.
Of course, for what I was being paid (tho it fell short of comparable positions in the area), I SHOULD have just purchased new keyboards every few months; it would have been far more cost-effective. But, somehow, it was preferable to have me clean keys for hours than have me do the zillion other things required of a geek in a public library.
Argh.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
No, apparently the salmonella gets inside the eggs as well.
The "o" key is fine, it's the "0" key I'm worried about.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
i can eat glass, it does not hurt me
(adopted from the original which can be found on the wayback machine)
fear is the mind killer
These skins would be a perfect solution to the stated problem: they could be removed and cleaned, and you *could* pour bleach on these!
That article was a hand-wringing example of people failing to solve a problem because they failed to think outside the box.
...probably explains why the article failed to pick up on something that anyone working in a hospital already knows: Most of the keyboards (especially the ones in corridors near burse's stations, being used a lot) have thin plastic film covering the entire flat surface. They're almost all laptops, protected by plastic, easily cleaned, etc. Another non-story.
I've never known anyone to develop asthma or allergies from eating off of clean surfaces, but your mileage may vary. I'll stick to keeping my cutting surfaces - and every other surface I'm likely to put slabs of raw meat on top of - clean, thank you very much. If you want to rub your orange slices on a piece of wood covered in dried cow's blood from yesterday's steak, more power to you. Perhaps it will enhance the taste of your smoothie. I'll take my risk of asthma while you take yours of salmonella.
Well, that's fascinating... thanks for the link! Good thing I don't find myself eating raw eggs... :)
thasts whgy i awlwasy tgype witgh mny dickj
> has anyone seen the new Dell keybs
Yeah, I'm typing on one right now, and they are very nice, and look pretty sweet. However, because the bottom edge is not a straight line (the space bar juts out), wrist rests don't work very well. Also, they are USB-only.
Do you have any more info, such as a brand name? Have you only tried one kind? I ask because I am the IT staff of a small hospital and the possibility of keyboard-spread germs has kinda' bothered me since I started.
My other idea was to use Micro-ban based keyboards, but they're a bit expensive.
I'll check tonight when i'm home and post it.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
The virtually indestructable keyboard
model FLX-1000
Grandtec USA
2715 Electronic Lane
Dallas TX 75220
214-366-3496
www.grandtec.com
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Most guys? I don't think so. Only and right-handed computer geeks and regular lefties.
I'm trying to improve my English. Please correct me on any spelling/grammar errors in this post.
But can it survive cat poo? Cat poo?!
CAT POO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pelé!