[thelist] way OT -- keyboard woes

Gerenday, Perry (P.) pgerenda at visteon.com
Wed Oct 17 10:07:15 CDT 2001


-----Original Message-----
From: rudy [mailto:r937 at interlog.com]
 
 > a couple of the keys on my keyboard have died from overuse
 > 
 > i've pried the caps off to see if there's an accumulation of 
 > grunge under
 > them, but that's not the problem, and it looks like there's a rubber
 > thingie under the cap, so maybe the electrical contact is 
 > grungy under
 > that?  i don't want to pry the rubber thingie up, in case i 
 > rip it, but
 > before i take the keyboard apart from the bottom, perhaps someone can
 > advise whether i should even bother -- have i just pounded the key to
 > death, or can it be fixed?   by me?
 

Hey Rudy,

I'm gonna guess that you've already torn your keyboard apart, broke
something, and bought a new one by now but this situation reminds me of a
similar one I found myself in not long ago.

Besides fooling around with web sites, I also fool around with video
production. (I do get paid for this fooling around, incidentally) The system
I inherited with the job used a 386 PC and keyboard to generate titles for
video. The keyboard had color-coded keys to indicate certain functions and
so, was not interchangeable with other keyboards I had on hand. One day, in
a fit of stupidity, I slammed my fist into the middle of the keyboard and
naturally, several important keys lay lifeless after the onslaught. When I
pried off the buttons I discovered a spring, foam-sponge, and foil system of
contact and rebound. The foam-sponge had turned to dust and collapsed,
preventing the foil, which was glued to it, from making contact with the
keyboard base. My eventual solution was to "borrow" a spongy-duck bathtub
toy from my daughter and cut pieces from it to repair the keyboard. The new
arrangement worked flawlessly for another year until I could convince my
employer to purchase a non-linear video editing system on a modern PC.

Well, I'm going to offer my first tip. I haven't been on [thelist] very
long, so I apologize if this tip is stale.

<tip type="Internet Explorer">

Here's a tip to save yourself some key strokes while browsing with Internet
Explorer and a PC. Type in the domain name of the site you want to visit
then hit the "Ctrl" and "Enter" buttons. IE will automatically add "www" to
the beginning and ".com" to the end. If you don't want to go to a ".com" -
sorry, you're on your own.

</tip>


Perry Gerenday, Visual Communications Artist
www.virtually-artistic.com




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