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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?
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
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. :)
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.
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.
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
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...
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.
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".
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
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.
THANKS ALOT!!! My laptop is ruined!!!
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
HA! Just watch me! I'll pour any damn liquid on there I want! There, doone! Anmd itttttttttttttttt sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssstuiuiuil ll wwwwrrks perrdfgdfgctttttttttttttttttttttttlllyy!@@@#@@@
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
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.
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.
I just tried your suggestion, and now my laptop won't boot up. Please advise.
I wasn't picking it, I was SCRATCHING it...
Even though that would be incredibly wasteful, there is a reason they wont do that: Labor time and security.
If a hospital has 1000 keyboards to change every day, that would cost an assload more than just the cost of the keyboards.
Plus, you would have to give the "keyboard exchanger job" full access to all of the hospital. These people would also likely be paid near nothing, so the incentive to steal or even pry goes up.
Bad news broncos. Better solution would be to just implement better cleaning around keyboards (hand sanitizers, etc) to prevent the keyboars from getting uber-dirty in the first place. 1000x cheaper in the long term.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
</heloise>
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
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.
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
Anyhow, if they sold keyboards made of that, I suspect that a lot of people would want them, not just hospitals.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.)
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.
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.
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.-
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.)
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?
OK, so the electiricty takes the path of least resistance straight between the cap leads... and discharges the capacitor. So what exactly would that hurt besides the water between the leads?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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...
Or you could provide a shred of evidence to substantiate your bizarre claim. Again, I repeat - I know of nobody who has gotten sick from cleaning up after themselves. Do you really not bother to clean your dishes for fear of asthma?