Yesterday while I was conversing with Julie via instant message (our desks must be a good 20 feet apart as the crow flies) I knocked over a not-quite-empty can of soda onto my keyboard.
I wiped the spill up as best I could, but after a while the keyboard stopped working properly. The mouse was fine, but the text was coming out in all caps. One advantage of a transparent keyboard housing is that you can see when something is sloshing around inside (one of the disadvantages is that you can also see all the bread crumbs and other detritus that accumulates it you eat at the computer) and indeed some of the spilled soda was doing just that.
So I unplugged the keyboard, set it on a diagonal for the soda to drain out, plugged in a spare, plugged the mouse into the spare and kept typing without missing a beat.This morning, after the "compact" layout of the spare keyboard had bugged me for long enough, I unplugged it, plugged in the now-dry favorite, and went back to work. I can't imagine how many components I wuld have fried back in the old days.
Posted by wallich at May 20, 2003 11:44 AMAhhh... The true power of the Universal Serial Bus!
Posted by: Tim at May 20, 2003 12:20 PMWhen Thomas was two, he fed my almost-brand-new Powerbook a can of caffeine-free diet Dr Pepper. Fortunately, it was asleep at the time, so I only had to pay $150 for a replacement keyboard. The moral: keep drinks, toddlers, and electronics apart from one another.
Posted by: paul at May 20, 2003 02:19 PMWhat about adult toddlers like yours truly? One of the changes I've notice since I got my LCD, by the way, is that there's a lot more room for food and drink on the desk.
Posted by: paul at May 20, 2003 04:34 PM