After a while of using the same keyboard in an area where you do other stuff like eating and drinking and carpentry, you'll find that the keys become a little sticky because of the crust that forms in the tray under all the keys. And, even thought you might dust and keep clean your desk, you'll notice that dust builds up (along with missing pens and rubber bands) underneath the keyboard. This happened to me a while back.
I decided that my keyboard needed a make-over. The first thing I tried to do was clean up the key-crust. To start this operation, I first had to pop off all the keys. This was easily taken care of with the aid of a pocket knife. I was able to use a toothbrush and some compressed air to clean the tray and all the keys.
While I was at it, I created a skirt with duct tape. The skirt would drape around the edges of the keyboard, touching the desk so that dust and pens and crap could not get under the keyboard and leave a disgusting surprise for me the next time I tried to clean my desk.
It wasn't until I had turned my computer on and reattached all the keys that I had realized what I had done. The space bar didn't work.
Actually, it did, just not correctly. See, all the keys are attached to the board via one little post in the center of the key. All the normal keys are so small that the one post is sufficient. Larger keys, like the Enter, Shift, and Space bar, require assistance. Without the aid of a metal bent-paperclip-looking thing, if you push down one side, the other side comes up, like a see-saw pivoting on the center post. Because of this pivoting action, the post is never depressed and the keystroke does not register.
My space bar's paper-clip thing had broken during the cleaning. Over the next few months I would try to repair it with hot glue, paper clips, duct tape and all sorts of other things, never to any success. It was really getting on my nerves because sometimes it just wouldn't register, and other times it would stick and I'd have to pry it back up.
Today, after a couple of hours of work with some cardstock and hot glue, I managed to fix the issue. My space bar is now wonderfully responsive and makes typing a pleasure.
Yeah, I could have gotten another keyboard. In fact, I have a lot of other keyboards. I just like this one. It's got a row of hotkeys which are super useful for volume control and Hibernation. I picked up a replacement keyboard at Office Depot, but it didn't feature the Sleep key, which I use at least once ever day. So I returned it, getting back my 14 dollars (which was a rip-off to begin with... the one I've got costed $10.) I figured after enough time, I'd figure out a way to adequately repair the afflicted key.
Which I did. And now I'm happy.
Until next time...
~~Ben
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Sunday, October 7, 2007
Keyboard
Labels:
hardware,
story time