Spillage

[peterbirks]

I managed to pour a full mug of coffee onto the desk last night. My immediate concern was obviously for the Creative Zen, which appears to have survived with no damage. The desk itself is ancient and not a matter of concern, but the keyboard appears to be a write-off. Needless to say the spare keyboard upstairs has the wrong-size connection (which shows you how ancient the various keyboards are), so I can either pop into Maplins today to buy a large-to-small adaptor, or buy a keyboard and a USB-to-small adaptor, or buy a keyboard and try to fit yet another USB connection to a machine that wasn't really designed for so many USB connections.

Jonathan sent me an Economist article which states that 60% of LiveJournal bloggers are female and under 21, which tells me which live convention I should be attending this summer. Then again, perhaps not. The thought of 100s of girls all going "Ewwwwwww!!!!" and moaning about how unfair life is because their parents make them get up at 11am and won't give them more than $100 for clothes a week might just be a little too much to bear. Unless any of them had a spare keyboard with a small pin connector.


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Comments

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

If you don't take sugar (can't remember) then there's a reasonable chance that the keyboard will be fine once it's dried out completely. If there's sugar involved then it's probably better to get a new one: even if the electronics recover (likely) there will be ongoing stickiness, which for any competent typist would be mad-making.

You should be able to pick up a USB-to-PC (or whatever it's called) adaptor for a couple of quid or so - I use a self-bought mouse at work that came with just such a device thrown into the £15 package. (In my day computer mice - mouses? - were luxury items, mumble mumble).

I don't mind USB mice particularly but I lean towards the view that keyboards ought to connect through their own port, if only because none of my PCs to date have been able to recognise a USB keyboard before Windows starts, which is a problem if you want to get into the BIOS during boot. And I know that's a super-rare occasion, but it becomes an order of magnitude more likely the moment you lack the hardware to do it at all...

Mike

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Don't have sugar. It was playing up in an odd way last night (starting up Calculator whenever I pressed random keys) and then acting in a different odd way this morning, by which time I thought it would have dried out.

I didn't actually think that I had spilt that much liquid onto it -- I was more concerned about the Zen (and rationally so) but it would appear that the accumulated dust might have caused the problem.

I quite fancy a new keyboard anyway, so it's a nice jog in the right direction.

My laptop has a mouse-to-small pin USB adaptor, so I actually know what these things look like.

PJ

Just throw it out

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

...and besides which, keyboards are ten a penny. You could have one of our spares; I think I have about 6 or 7 downstairs in the technology graveyard. Not sure what to do about these not-really-obsolete but not-really-up-to-speed machines and the last batch of Evesham PCs we bought on renetworking 3 years ago all came with their own new keyboards.

Three years is my official lifespan for a PC and so I must resign myself to a new spree sometime soon. But they're still standing up really well and have remained remarkably bug and failure-free so we'll see.

Re: Just throw it out

[(Anonymous)]

I normally buy a new computer every four years, but my present one is two years old and the current ones on the market don't seem remarkably better. A bit of a lull in technological progress?

We also have a few spare keyboards around the house. But my wife prefers a Spanish one so I bought one separately -- because I normally buy computers with American keyboards, if possible.

-- Jonathan

Re: Just throw it out

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

All of my keyboards are set up the American way, even though they are English keyboards. Although this causes me no problems at all, it can cause the unwary customer sitting at my keyboard some perplexing moments. "How do I get the "@"?, they cry, plaintively. "It's above the "2", I reply".

It's actually a matter of habit and it does mean that I have to type ALT+0163 for the "£" sign, but since I use those number combinations for several keys (¢,é,¥,ü,ö, spring immediately to mind) it's a minor hardship. I just like having the " above the '. It's (a) logical and (b) a convenient place for the double quotation mark, which I use one hell of a lot.

PJ

My workhorse computer must be six years old now, but I use it mainly for online poker and the 384mb ram is enough for that, although for how long this might be the case, I don't know. Party Poker turns off the animations when Pokertracker runs its auto-update. I then turn the animation back on and it stays fine after I tell it to listen to me rather than do what it wants to do and, no, by turning back on the animations I will not cause my computer to explode.

I really should get myself a new one, if only to practise eight-tabling without overlap. I know that I could theoretically do this on my existing computer, but I think that the video ram would give up the ghost.

PJ

Keyboard antics

[(Anonymous)]

I prefer an American keyboard because I've had to use them at work for years and years anyway, so it's what I'm accustomed to.

But I still use the old DOS code for the £ sign (ALT-156). It's one key shorter and it works. In fact I use the DOS codes for everything except characters that weren't available in DOS. Occasionally I get caught out by the odd program that doesn't accept DOS codes...

-- Jonathan

Kiddy Con

[mrwarfrog.livejournal.com]

One assumes that they would be going eeeewww at the crusty old fart sat in the corner.
hello you old fart. How they hanging? Long time no see.