How to clean a keyboard

In this post I will go over a couple of ways to clean a dirty keyboard. The methods we will cover should be simple yet effective. While it is possible to damage a keyboard with water it is often safe to use after drying completely. Waiting for a keyboard to dry is probably the most time consuming part as water tends to get trapped in the crevices deep inside. At any rate, if the keyboard was so dirty to the point of being discarded then there is nothing to lose by performing risky cleansing procedures to eke out some life from it.

Method #1: Dishwasher

This method is easy and will work on most cheap rubber membrane keyboards. In this process we will simply take the entire keyboard and place it upside-down on the highest rack in your dishwasher. A quick run through the most gentle cycle should quickly power through most of the grime and leave it sparkling clean. This is the most time effective method and well worth it if you don't mind losing the keyboard.

Method #2: Partial dismantle

If you've managed to keep your keyboard fairly clean but can't stand the few crumbs and hairs hanging out below the keys you may be able to clean a little deeper. In this case you can pop off all the keys and pass a vacuum attachment or damp cloth. In my experience even the most aggressive cleaning detergents don't seem to do any damage, but if you are unsure you can test a spot on the bottom side of the keyboard. Dish soap can be effective but a bathroom disinfectant does a more satisfying job.

Method #3: Full dismantlement

So you've bought that keyboard from the thrift shop. Yes, that grimey Model M that's been caked in cigarette ash and cola. Your only option in this case is to break out the screw driver and start taking it apart. Pop off all the keys and keep all the plastic bits separate so you can bathe them. Take a large bowl or tub and fill it with warm water and a few cap-fulls of bleach and let everything sit for an hour or so. In the mean time you can wipe down the internals with a disinfectant cloth. After you've got the internals smelling fresh, go over each of the plastic bits with a disinfecting wipe. 

The small plastic films and crevices inside of a keyboard can take up to a week to dry completely. Be sure to leave everything in a well ventilated area to speed up the process. Give the parts a good shake before you put everything back together to make sure there is not water left inside.

Time to chat

Once you have finally dried your keyboard, you can finally relax. The only thing you can do next is plug it into your computer and hope for the best. If it doesn't work on the first try do not give up hope. It is possible that there is a loose cable or some humidity. If you get frustrated it is better to try again the next day. If your keyboard is working fine then rejoice! Test all of the keys to be absolutely sure you are done. Then come and join us in the #TaLKiNg chat channel on Rizon.

See you there!

The MiniDisc Throwback

A few days ago while browsing youtube for videos featuring my favorite Japanese band, I stumbled across a commercial for a MiniDisc player. A couple of eBay transactions later and I have a NetMD recorder and five colourful 80-minute discs. While the audio quality is a bit lacking, I simply adore the style of these tiny diskettes. They have a retro quality that is accompanied by a sort of mystique due to the format's short lived lifespan.

One more thing... IDE!

I started doing some programming practices today, I'm going to copy out all the programs out of my java book. It got me a better feeling of the IDEs/editors, and so I'm trying to make things a little more efficient for myself. At first I started using nano to edit, and it was okay but it was sort of a pain in the ass to be running the program from command line. Not a huge deal. I jumped over to using Geany which was actually pretty nice. I guess I probably have a few things to tweak but it was fine for a few basic programs.

I'm wondering what sort of development environments other people use. Eclipse and NetBeans are used pretty frequently, but they're both so bloated. My computer has a hard time keeping up. I'm afraid to even touch vim. In the end I'd imagine that it really doesn't matter as long as I'm able to pump out code efficiently and comfortably. I've considered using a programmers dvorak keyboard layout; the biggest difference is the numbers. That's confusing, even though I use the numpad.

Why Android sucks

Over the past week I haven't been chatting much, and it's been because I bought myself a shiny new toy. I bought the Asus Transform TF101-A1, a 16 Gigabyte Android tablet. At first, I wasn't so impressed with it. Eventually I started to find my way around and discovered how nice I could make things. Then, I ventured into the market...

The Android Marketplace sucks. Plain and simple. Finding apps is a pain in the ass, unless you know exactly what you are looking for. There are tons of apps out there, but most of them just don't seem to deliver the promises that they make. Many apps ask for tons of unnecessary permissions to use your device. Without the rigorous screening that's taken place in the iTunes store, it opens the door for some pretty scary security holes. As far as quality of apps go, the marketplace seems really lacking. The good are few and far between. Quality tablet-specific apps seem almost nonexistent.

I think it's a mere fluke that the Android platform got so popular. It started off as a nice base for hackers to play with their devices, while still having the backing of a major entity. Now the hacker community is just a small fraction of the user base, somewhat hidden away to avoid the beggars and skiddies who want their phone rooted and flashed just to get some new live wallpaper or something. I don't think it's as nice as it probably once started out with developers donating their free time to contribute to a mobile platform that actually made sense, as far as freedom was concerned.

The freedom is still there, but now mainly only to those with the patience to read the fine print. It was implemented poorly allowing applications to abuse the user's (pseudo) privacy. The Android world is a little daunting; It requires a bit more thinking that could be expected from today's automated society.