What’s wrong with you people? Screens are for touching!
My husband sent me this post as we’ve come to blows over me touching his monitor and he just looks at me in disgust when I show him something on my monitor and point it out with my fingers all over it.
The quickest way to point something out on the screen is to show you. Not by going, “look it’s that green pixel in the top right hand corner under the black menu item that says blah blah blah”…in the time it’s taken to explain I could have made you a nice cup of tea!
Just say no to liquid screen cleaners. They only come in two varieties:
Chemicals that are too harsh for LCD panels
Liquids that leave an oily film
I have found one and only one thing that consistently works well (other than posting signs and grabbing people’s arms as they head towards the screen): a high quality lens wipe of the ilk used for cleaning photography lenses.
Okay, I love you now… lol. I have told my co-workers about 10,000 times not to touch my freaking screen, lol. They think I am overly anal, but I do not want to see the residue of your visit for the next 2 months.
1 to never touching the screen. It is for viewing, not touching… should shock the crap out of you if you get within 2 inches of it, lol.
Have you ever tried a M$ Ergo keyboard in the dishwasher? I would not mind trying ti but I don’t want to waste 60 bucks…
(Oh well, there are still two keys exchanged from my last cleaning session. Never bothered to correct that.)
And hey, to all those little buggers afraid of bacteria: Those on my keyboard are my germs. I’ve had them already. So cleaning the darn keyboard from all the pizza crust once a year is surely enough. If you’re afraid of germs, stop breathing air, especially those from air-conditioners. Maybe, you give some scuba-gear a try?
I’ve been washing my keyboards in dishwashers for a few years now, and it is definitely the most effective method of cleaning them. I’ve known schools and colleges that use the dishwasher method as well.
One thing that does worry me is cleaning a laptop keyboard. I’m still looking for a good method of cleaning a laptop out, so maybe I’ll give the enclosed guide a try.
At one job I started, I inherited a filthy keyboard and desk that I did not want to touch. I had to bring in my own cleaning supplies and I never did get comfortable using the thing. I left after a brief few months – for other reasons of course, but it was nice walking away from that work station for the last time.
The quickest way to point something out on the screen is to show you.
Yes, and you can do that perfectly well WITHOUT jabbing your fingertip or nail at the screen. Point, not touch - and you don’t watch with your fingers but with your eyes. At least, that’s what they used to teach little kids.
I find that, at least on this basic Dell keyboard I use at work, when you take it apart you’ve got 3 bits - the “key” tray where all the keys are plugged into holes, a rubber key mat, and the bottom half. The key tray bit, at least on this keyboard, actually has drain holes that come go all the way through the bottom half too. The key tray bit is also where all the crud collects.
You basically just need to just take the key tray which is all plastic (and a few metal bits under the space/shift/etc) and rinse it in hot water and/or detergent. Shake it dry, alternatively leave it overnight, screw it all back together and magic. You’re not getting anything but mechanical parts wet, and they’re physically separated from the electronics when it’s all back together in case any bits of moisture remain.
Back in the early 1990s at university, we had a particularly expensive Solaris box with an even more expensive flat-screen display. The sign taped to the wall above the display said: “Remember to immediately wash your hands after touching the screen”.
As for cleaning keyboards I usually used the very manual and work-intense solution of disassembling the keyboard completely and clean every part individually (yes, the keys are a PITA) in a solution with washing powder and afterwards with clean water. It never occurred to me to stick it into the dishwasher (well, I don’t have one anymore so I can’t try) and given that my Das Keyboard died from a bit rain (I repaired it in a five-hour session with conductive lacquer) I certainly won’t ever try putting the keyboard as whole in it. Those printed circuits rust too easily.
i listened to that segment on NPR and couldn’t wait to throw my keyboard into the dish washer. I had heard you could do it before, but after hearing it on NPR I decided to wait no longer.
I tried the dishwasher trick once, and regretted it because it washed away the lubrication often used on the larger keys. The space bar in particular was much stiffer afterward. I guess I could have relubed it, but I ended up just replacing the keyboard and swearing off the dishwasher method.
Since then, I’ve reverted to my old method. When they get visibly grotty on the upper surfaces, it’s a sure sign it’s absolutely disgusting inside. I remove the mechanism from the outer case, pry off all the small keys – nothing with a metal bail underneath, they’re a b**** to reassemble – shake out the loose stuff over a trash can, use tweezers and Q-tips to pull out the hair and stickier particles, then clean away surface dirt with isopropyl alcohol. It takes maybe half an hour, and the keyboard always works at least as well as it did before.
Me, I’m just disassembling keys from my Microsoft Natural Elite keyboard, wash them either by hand or in a dishwasher and then washing the rest with wet cloth. MS keyboards (at least Natural line) have a damn good plastic cover beneath keys and all the dirt stays just there.
I’ve even had once a small spider (dead) in my keyboard. Now I wash it every month and vacuum it every 2 days.
And it is always fun watching my friends/family big eyes when I put all the keys back without cheatsheet/screen testing
It’s even more fun when you’re showing a superior officer something and they start touching the screen. You want to kill them – I mean you could because you have a gun – but you can’t even yell at them because of their fancy-pants rank!
Wow… great topic as I can be pretty anal about this myself. “… touch my screen, I’ll kill you.” - hahah! Strangely enough- if someone touches my laptop without permission I will threaten them, I despise anyone who thinks they can simply use another person’s laptop, even without asking them first!? I literally flipped out on the last person that did this. Laptops, to me, can be very personal and more so than a desktop- this is kind of obvious. Leave people’s laptops alone.
One of the first things I do when moving into a new cube is sanitize the keyboard. This includes turning the device upside down while applying a vigorous shaking. The amount of boogers, food crumbs, hair and other oddities that fall out can be quite alarming. Long live Lysol and Windex Wipes.
If you’re afraid of germs, stop breathing air, especially those from air-conditioners. Maybe, you give some scuba-gear a try? 
