After listening to Leo Laporte talking about washing keyboards in dishwashers I decided to test out my old Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. I let it dry overnight and tested it the next day, but pressing one key would display several characters along with the one I wanted. I was disappointed, but had wanted a new keyboard anyway due to the dirt and stuff all over the old one. I bought my new Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and plugged it in. After some time using it I eventually got used to it. Lisa tested it while she was here recently and loves it more than my old Pro keyboard.
Well, Sienna’s keyboard had stopped working due to her tripping over the cable some weeks ago. It worked in bits and pieces for a while but eventually stopped working unless I held it at just the right angle in the socket, bit my tongue and tilted my head 31.4159265358979323846264338327950288 degrees to the left. I gave up on it and advised her we would have to get another. I waited for the last couple of weeks for Freecycle to have one available but no such dice.
I have been listening to Leo again talking to people about washing keyboards. He said he had similar issues with his keyboard when testing after only about 4 days so he left it for about two weeks. He then tested it again and Lo and Behold it worked fine. I thought ‘What have I got to lose?’ and plugged my old Pro keyboard into Sienna’s PC. I set up the BIOS settings (the battery has died) and logged into Mepis fine. I launched the text editor “Kate” and tested every key I could. THEY ALL WORK PERFECTLY! YEEEHHAAAA!!!! How sweet is that? The keyboard actually survived!!
All in all, had I had the time I could have waited and tested again but it would have left me without a usable computer for a couple of weeks. I can’t last that long. I have my CafePress shop to keep updated as often as possible and I chat to Catherine most nights of the week. The only downside to my new keyboard is it has no USB ports and no internal hub. The old one does. I may have to end up purchasing a cheap USB hub as I have so many devices now to install and have to keep crawling under the table to insert and remove different devices. I do actually have two extra USB 1.1 ports due to other USB PCI cards and extenders inside the PC but when I plug things into the ports they come up as unrecognised devices. I do have two devices currently plugged into other ports and they seem to work fine. I have four USB 1.1 ports, one used in each two-port-set. My mouse is detected and works fine in one of the USB 1.1 ports and my keyboard is in another. I understand they would be SLOWER than USB 2.0 ports but why would devices not be recognised at all plugged into the USB 1.1 ports? Oh well. No matter.
March 31st, 2008 at 3:38 pm - Edit
Good to see you still remember pi to 30 odd decimal places….and yes you are correct…;-P