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Your keyboard is disgusting. You, and probably other people’s, hands touch it every day, and those food crumbs don’t help either. If you have a cat that thinks the keyboard is an excellent place to sit, you will be amazed how much cat hair manages to get under the keys. Luckily, or unluckily, it’s fairly straight forward to clean your keyboard and remove all that cat hair.
Above is an example of how dirty a keyboard can get. On the left is the original dirt. The right side has already been cleaned.
The first step is to take plenty of pictures so you know how to put the keys back together. Also, make sure you know how to take your keys off and put them back on. Next, pull out all the keys without breaking everything.
Using some damp paper towels, remove all the dirt, crumbs, cat hair, etc. from the base of the keyboard. Keep in mind that letting water seep inside the keyboard could damage it..Depending on just how dirty your keyboard is, this could be very easy or very hard. If you have a pet, expect it to take some work, since pet hair doesn’t come up nicely with a damp towel.
Next you have to clean the keys themselves. These are usually just pieces of plastic, so dump them in a pan with water and a little bit of vinegar. Let them soak for a few minutes or stir them around. Then, take each one and rise it off in a bowl of plain water, removing any remaining dirt with a toothpick.
Let the keys dry for a while. As you wait, think about how much easier it would have been to spend $5 on a new keyboard. Anyway, the hardest part is done.
Once the keys have completely dried, begin reassembling them on your keyboard according to the pictures, your memory, and how you think they really should be. (The arrow keys look way cooler if they all point in the wrong direction.)
Enjoy your new, shiny old keyboard.
Hack'n Ur Crap: External CD Drive > DVD Drive
With the abundance of netbooks and other optical drive-lacking computers, a USB external DVD drive is quickly becoming an essential accessory for any geek. Unfortunately, a new one will run you about $50 from most stores. Luckily, you can upgrade most external CD drives for half that.
I picked up an external CD-ROM drive that was about to be thrown away. It’s likely that if you look around you can find one, too, since they aren’t much use as they are. Once you’ve found one, go out and pick up an internal DVD burner. It depends on the external CD drive you find, but most likely you will need an IDE drive, rather than a newer SATA drive.
Parts
- External CD Drive (free)
- Internal DVD Burner (~$25)
Total: $25 (About half what this would cost pre-assembled.)
Putting It Together
Open up your external CD drive and take a look at the insides. If you got one that looks anything like mine, you will see a CD drive connected by a few cables to some circuit boards and switches at the back. You should see a Molex connector (four connections, usually white) that provides power, a long rectangular IDE connector (colors vary) with many spots for pins on it that carries the data, and, possibly, a smaller audio connector that has spots for a few pins.
Remove the CD drive from the case (look for screws on either side of the drive) and disconnect the connectors. If the Molex connector is on tightly, you may need pliers and/or super-human strength. (As a side note, this project will give you an incredible appreciation for new SATA power connectors.) Set this drive aside and connect the new drive just like the old one was connected. Screw it in and close the case up again.
That should be it, there are a couple of things to keep in mind, though:
First, while unlikely, it is possible that you get a CD drive that uses the SATA connection. If you connectors don’t match what I described, you may need a different type of DVD drive. More about SATA, IDE.
Second, 5.5″ optical drives vary somewhat in length. If there is very little clearance between the end of the drive and the other stuff in the case, make sure you check the lengths of the drives. There is also something called a “slim” drive. These are shorter in height. Try to get a new drive that is as physically similar to the old drive as possible.
Obviously every drive will differ, so be ready to adjust these steps to whatever you get.