RoamingGecko

So, someone spilled what looked to be coke on one of the Apple keyboards in one of my labs on campus. There may be a way to take these keyboards apart but after about five minutes of looking for a way to do that I decided to give a rumor I heard a go. Washing the keyboard in a dishwasher.

With the keyboard already written off, I had spares, I didn’t prep it in any way. I just placed it on the top shelf of the dish washer, added a little soap, and ran the dishwasher on the “Normal” setting. I stopped the dishwasher before it got to the heat cycle as I was fairly sure that if the keyboard made it through the wash the plastic used on the keyboard most assuredly would not survive the heat cycle the washer uses to the dry dishes.

After I took it out of the dishwasher I shook as much water out of it as I could and then I put the keyboard out in the sun for a day to dry. The next day I plugged it back in and it works perfectly. Keys no longer stick and every key input works. Just to be sure this wasn’t a fluke, I did the process all over again with a second keyboard that had sticky keys. The second keyboard works as well.

So, if you have a sticky keyboard and have nothing left to lose, give it a shot. It worked for me.

Sorry for all the Twitters last night. Was testing a new social aggregator and forgot to turn off automatic updates. Oops!

I found out a couple of days ago that Grand Central accounts were at one time going for about $600 on eBay. If I had known that at the time I might have put my mine up on eBay. I upgraded my Grand Central account to a Google Voice account a few hours ago and all I have to say is this… Those people out there that payed hundreds of dollars just to get a Google Voice account a little earlier than the rest of the public, there is an old saying, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

So far, I am not impressed with Google Voice. I understand this is a new service and that this is bascically still in beta but it’s just not what I have come to expect from Google. Don’t get me wrong. I love Google! They make some nice stuff and I use most of them. It’s just that some of the basic features are still in alpha as far as I am concerned. Just check out my Flickr photostream to see what I am talking about.

I’ll post again once I have had more time to play with the service.

I have taken to creating comics of my new puppy. She came home today and the newest comic is about the ride home. Feel free to check it out.

http://homepage.mac.com/robgrant/comiclife/

If you don’t know anything about the breed the video above will give you a good look at the dog (mine will be the same “Red and White” color that you see in the video) and some of it’s characteristics. Although I am sure the die hard Basenji owner will say the video falls short of really letting someone know what this interesting breed is all about, think of the video as more of an introduction to the breed instead of a de facto statement about this amazing dog.

All I know is I am getting really excited and Sunday can not come soon enough as far as I am concerned.

I know I am just wasting my breath, or needlessly exercising my fingers, but I have to approve ALL comments made to this web site so you are just wasting your time and mine when you post spam. It won’t get seen by anyone visiting this site and I delete them immediately. So, find some place else to peddle your junk.

Ok, this is going to sound a tad cynical but for the life of me I can’t figure out why some people do this. Before Christmas I didn’t notice this but since, I got both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour over the holidays,  I can now tell the difference between someone who is just checking the game out at one of the demo units in stores and someone who is apparently trying to show people their “mad video game guitar/drum skills!”

Now, for the younger generation I’ll cut them some slack. They’re young and excited about the game and I don’t see anything wrong with that. Now for the the older crowd, those 18 and older, you just seem like a huge tool sitting at these demo units and playing some Bon Jovi or eighties metal song like you own it. I watch these people and I feel like they really think they are the original bad ass because they can play a video game representation of a song using a toy guitar. Don’t get me wrong, the games are pretty fun but there is a difference between having a little fun at home with your friends and putting on a concert for the public at your local Best Buy. It’s even worse, like the goof ball in the picture above, when you set the difficulty level up a notch or two and then play the song like so badly you start looking around to see who is watching and then set the game difficulty back to easy so as not to blow your cool image.

Seriously folks, save it for your living rooms.