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.

Updated: May 5th, 2009

NOTE: Please read the entire post. I have updated this blog entry several times to reflect changes in both the GPS and Chipset software since I originally posted this entry. If you have any questions or problems leave a comment and I will reply back to you. Thanks!

I thought I would take a moment to describe how to fix a problem that popped up with my GPSMap 60 this weekend in the event it happens to someone else who might be using this model. I have to tell you, GPS’s are great tools when you are traveling unfamiliar roads but it’s no fun at all when they stop working. I know you all have been lectured on the proper way to shut down your computers by we IT people and you might not really understand why or even believe that you can corrupt your system by shutting it down improperly but I am here to tell you, it can happen. In the process of trying to turn on my GPS’s back light, I shunted the system and corrupted the software on the chipset. I turned the unit on and in an attempt to turn on the back light while driving and paying more attention to the road than the unit, which is a good thing by the way, I turned off the unit while it was still in the process of booting up. Instant chipset corruption! You will know when this happens because your unit will be stuck perpetually at the screen seen in the second image of this post.

Believe me when I tell you, your GPS will not acquire a satellite no matter how long you leave it on, no matter how long you leave it off and then try turning it back on, removing the the batteries or swapping out the unit’s SD card. The chipset’s software had been corrupted and it will not work properly until you have reloaded the chipset software. The easiest way to tell if you have encountered this problem is to check the software version of your GPS. If the GPS SW version is 0.00, then you have indeed corrupted the chipset and will need to reload the software. The third image of this post will show you what version number I am referring to.

As I have said, in order to get your GPS unit functioning again you will need to reinstall the chipset software. There are two ways to do this. You can use the Web Updater program that you probably installed when you first bought the unit. You will find it under the Garmin menu from your Start menu. The second way would be to install the chipset software manually using the the “G” chipset installer. The second method is the one I used as I kept getting a “Transfer Error” when I tried to use the Web Updater software. You can download this software directly from Garmin, if you can find it. I think they want folks to use the Web Updater software as they aren’t real up front on where to download the actual installer packages. If you like you can download the software from this site here.

NOTE: Here is the latest version of the Chip Set Firmware, V.3.00. I am providing this as a secondary download as some have reported to me that the V.3.00 caused their units to shut off prematurely. Try this version and if you have any problems roll your GPS back to the V.2.90 software.

I have tested this software and my unit does continue to function normally so if you want the latest version of the software (GPSMAP 60CSx Ver. 3.90 as of Mar 30, 2009) for the GPSMap 60CSX you can download it here. If you prefer you can download it directly from Garmin.

Click the image to the left to download the GPSMAP 60CSx User Manual

Installing the software in fairly simple. Connect the GPSMap 60 to your computer using the mini-USB cable that came with your unit and then run the installer. Refer to your Owner’s Manual if you need further assistance. All that being said, I love my GPSMap 60 and this minor bump in the road has not changed my opinion of the unit. It’s been a great little unit and I fully expect it to remain so for years to come.

Note: The screens above are not the actual screens, just approximations I created in PS to give folks a visual. The actual screens will looks slightly different. I wrote this post to help others should they have this problem with their GPSMap 60′s as I didn’t find a lot of clear help on the web when I researched the problem. If you have more questions, please feel free to comment below.

I picked up a new toy this week. It’s basically an open external hard drive enclosure for your SATA hard drives. Now I have tons of ATA drives lying around, so this is very handy for me but when I saw it I also saw the potential for it’s use as a tech head. With this device you could mount the hard drive from your computer, as long a it’s an SATA drive, and retrieve your files should something go wrong with your system. Now, if your computer is less than 3 years old then chances are you have a SATA drive as your computer’s hard drive. The device connects to your computer via a USB cable, you drop your SATA drive into it and power it on and it mounts the drive on your desktop or in Windows Explorer if you are on a PC. It also has applications as a security device. You can transfer your sensitive files to it and then stick the drive in a safe once you have ejected the drive from the the device. You could also very easily send the hard drive, I’m thinking of the smaller size here that you find in your notebook computers, via UPS or standard mail if you had a project that was larger than 8GB. Think video projects.

It will mount all SATA drives, 2.5 and 3.5 drives and will transfer files at the rate of a standard USB 2.0 connection. (480/mb) I haven’t tried mounting a laptop SATA drive yet, I don’t have a 2.5 drive here at the house at the moment, but I am sure it will work just as well as the three larger drives I have tried. I’m very happy with it and at just over $30 dollars, you can beat the value.

One of the images below you can see that the drive it sitting next to my Mac but I also hooked it up to my Windows box and it worked as advertised there as well.

The Wii Fit is supposed to be released this week. I have been toying with the idea of getting one for a couple of reasons. One, I could stand to lose a few pounds but also I am curious about the the fitness tracking the unit will have once combined with the Nintendo Wii. If I do pick one up I may consider posting my weight loss results here. Regardless of whether I do that or not, if I do pick one up I will be sure to post my review of the unit here on the blog.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you heat doesn’t affect a computer. Heat took out the fan on the power supply and the server is now overheating.

IronKey: Meet The IronKey Secure Flash Drive

If you want some serious protection for your USB key, this thing is worth a look. The price is a little steep but I guess you are paying for all the tech that went into it.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Obviously, if you would like to keep people from using the USB ports on your computer to prevent them from doing this to your machine or copying data from your hard drive, well, that works too!

USB Port Blocker – Pack of 4, Colour Code: Blue | USB Light, Fan & Security Locks | USB & FireWire | LINDY UK

The simple and effective tool for blocking access to a computer’s USB port!

USB Port Blocker – Pack of 4, Colour Code: Blue
With this neat little device, system administrators can physically prevent users from connecting Pen Drives, MP3 Players and other USB Mass Storage Devices to their computers to copy data, introduce viruses etc.

The USB Port Blocker is made up of a combined ‘key’ and ‘lock’ assembly which plugs into the USB port. To use, simply plug the ‘keylock’ into the port and release the latch – the lock remains in place! Plug the key back into the lock to remove. Easy!

* Physically blocks access to a USB port
* Quick and easy to use
* Consists of 4 locks and 1 key

* 5 different colour code versions available: Pink, Green, Blue, Orange, White
* Each key only works with a lock of the same colour
* Also available in packs of 10 (without key)