Chris Pirillo » keyboard

How to Learn How to Type

Chris — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:16:12 +0000

How to Learn How to Type is a post from Chris Pirillo

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When I first started typing, my speed was about one word per minute – and it was on a typewriter. Back then, personal computers didn’t exist, and neither did electric typewriters. Later in life, I had to unlearn poor habits that I had learned in the course of teaching myself how to type. These days, I type around 100 wpm, which isn’t too bad. If you don’t type properly, there’s really no reason you shouldn’t learn. In this day and age of computers everywhere, you really need to be able to type properly – and quickly. The worst part will be unlearning your bad habits!

If you want to learn how to type, you don’t need to spend any money. You only need a computer and Internet access, and the knowledge that this website exists! typingweb is a free online typing tutor. Upon completing the Typing Test 5 times you will be given the option to create a printable TypingWeb Certificate of Completion containing your average score for the last 5 tests completed. There is support for all different types of keyboards and languages, as well as tutorials on mastering 10-key typing!

See what I’m telling you? There’s no reason in the World you shouldn’t be taking advantage of this site and the opportunities it can give you. As they say on the website itself: How can the Internet grow if it takes an hour to type an email?. Truer words were never typed!

If typingweb isn’t what you’re looking for, check out the old standby – Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. You can use these Broderbund coupons to purchase Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum for only $19.99:

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How Much Do You Use Your Mouse and Keyboard?

Chris — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:52:15 +0000

How Much Do You Use Your Mouse and Keyboard? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I bet you’re someone who uses a mouse and keyboard. Do you know how often you click your mouse or enter keystrokes? You could probably guess, but it’s not likely something you’ll do on your own. You may want to measure yourself against your friends, to see who is essentially doing more. In essence – you can take your computer pulse!

WhatPulse helps you discover and track your keyboard
and mouse usage. Track your usage history, compete against friends, or team up with your friends to compete against others. Do you feel that you could have moved your hands, keystroke by keystroke, across the globe twice today? Are you interested in finding out just how much you type a day? Sign up, download the client, and start tracking yourself now!

You run it in the background, where it syncs with your online account. It lets you see how many times you click your mouse, and how many keystrokes you enter. You can break it down by location, country, and many other types of measurements. It even tells you how many times you’ve moved your mouse!

You can set up your own teams if you wish. There’s one team right now, called the Dutch Power Cows, that is at the top of the heap. I’m thinking there needs to be a Geeks team, don’t you? We would so pwn the board, since that’s what we do!

WhatPulse is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux, so you have no excuse not to check your pulse!

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Dvorak vs Qwerty

Chris — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:48:19 +0000

Dvorak vs Qwerty is a post from Chris Pirillo

Kevin L. has been typing up a storm:

Hey Chris, I’ve been a fan of yours ever since you were on Call for Help. I used to love that station, and wish they still had a station that had enthusiastic tech, help, news, and a lot of fun mixed in. Although, these days I rarely watch TV. I do, however, watch a ton of YouTube videos – by you and the Tinkernut guy.

Recently, I was researching the Dvorak keyboard layout. I learned that it was developed for comfort and speed. The standard of our English keyboards (Qwerty) was designed so that typewriters wouldn’t get jammed – almost a century and a half ago. A lot of uber-geeks out there think that Dvorak is a simpler and faster method for typing.

I was wondering if you had ever tried or given any thought to using Dvorak? I would think this would make a great video. It might make an even greater poll. But this can also be used to prank your unsuspecting friends (not that I would do something so sinister). Thank you for entertaining, and informing us geeks.

Despite having friends who swear by Dvorak, I haven’t felt the need to switch it up. If only because it’s not quite standard – and I can’t imagine the frustration of walking up to a Qwerty keyboard and having to shift mental gears. Not to mention, I don’t feel like I’m a slow typer at 100+ WPM (on a good day).

I’d be interested in hearing from the community on this one.

What do You use for a KVM Switch?

Chris — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:38:03 +0000

What do You use for a KVM Switch? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Let’s say that you have a PC, but you don’t have a monitor, keyboard or mouse plugged into it. However, you do have a notebook computer sitting there with Windows on it, as well. You could use that notebook to run the PC with a KVM switch!

Not only are you saving energy by not running another monitor, you’re also saving space by not having another keyboard and mouse. Using a KVM switch is highly recommended for better productivity. You can use one keyboard, one mouse and one monitor for two different machines! I don’t think there’s an easier way to be efficient.

This is ideal for people who own a laptop and an older desktop PC and wish to keep using both for various functions or applications. The KVM features an on-screen toolbar with multiple functions such as file transfer, desktop image scaling and others. The built-in file transfer utility lets the user transfer files, presentations, business information and create backup copies between both computers or from external USB storage devices.

What’s interesting about this particular KVM is that it has an extra USB port built in. That allows you to plug in an external hard drive if you should need to! This is easy to use, and will allow you a ton of new-found freedom when managing your life. Keep and transfer files much faster using the IOGear Laptop KVM. All you need is open USB ports and Windows PCs and you’re ready to roll.

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Which Do You Use More: Mouse or Keyboard?

Chris — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:10:53 +0000

Which Do You Use More: Mouse or Keyboard? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Which input device do you rely on more – the keyboard or the mouse? Are you someone who uses them equally? I still use a keyboard more than my mouse. I love keyboard shortcuts. They increase my productivity by quite a lot. There’s a really cool website I found that doesn’t require me to use a mouse ever. Simply type in the search query, and the results fill themselves in automatically. You can use your keyboard arrow keys to navigate through the results, as well. keyboardr allows you to search without ever using your mouse.

keyboardr is a homepage. It speeds up your Internet experience. And if you like, it helps you keep your hands on the keyboard.

In the first place, keyboardr is a meta-search. You get Google, Wikipedia, and Youtube search results all together in one easy place. The instant search and the keyboard navigation are replacing the feeling of “searching” with the feeling of “launching”.

keyboardr will utilize many more Web services. Apart from usual web search services like Google, we are planning to support Friendfeed, De.li.ci.ous, Twitter, Flickr, Google Docs and many more. And in the final stage, we will have an extension system, open for any developer, to integrate any web service into our interface. So keyboardr will be a central station for you to get all your common Internet tasks done much faster.

This is nice and clean, which I love. It’s very simple to use, of course. And the developer is right – it’s much faster. Why not try it out today? You might end up making it your homepage, as well.

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Optimus Maximus Keyboard Software

Chris — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:51:15 +0000

Optimus Maximus Keyboard Software is a post from Chris Pirillo

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After successfully restarting my computer and pulling up the Optimus configuration tool for OS X, it was able to recognize the keyboard and map everything. I want to show you something that is really interesting on the keyboard.

Can you see this? Look closely at the keys. When I press the Shift key, the letters and numbers shown on the keyboard change to their “Shift” equivalents. Isn’t that kinda nice? Or, let’s say you’re thinking to yourself “I can barely see that font”. You really want me to make it a little bigger for you? I can do that if I want to! You can change the font size on your keyboard, bold the text on the keyboard, and even change the entire font altogether. You can do this either for certain keys, or the entire keyboard. You can even change the color of the backlighting to pretty much any color in the spectrum.

The main features of this amazing keyboard are:

Revolutionary Keyboard Features a tiny OLED screen on each key. 113 screens total.
Each key can be individually programmed to perform a series of functions, open an application or run an Applescript (Mac only)
Various System Monitor functions can dynamically display on a key including CPU usage, CPU temperature, Network Speed, and Memory Usage
Play a GIF animation or Quicktime movie on a Key
Paint images across all keys at once in your image editor of choice
Key sets can be linked to an application, so whenever you open that app the appropriate keys come up
Powerful layer function allows you to combine existing key sets in different ways
Use any language with the appropriate key images including Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic, Quenya, and Hiragana.
Display notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, math functions or any other special symbol.
Any key (or to be exact, a unit consisting of a cap, a microchip and a display) can be easily removed by hands to be cleaned or replaced
Built in USB hub
SD Card Slot for Storing keyboard Settings

I’m really looking forward to importing styles that other people have set on their Optimus Maximus keyboards and trying them out. Be sure to send me links to what you’ve done. I can’t wait to really dive in to the software, and set things up based on my wants and needs.

If you get a chance, you truly need to get your hands on one of these. It’s definitely worth the cost in my opinion. It’s just… an out-of-body experience. That’s the best way to put it. THANK YOU ThinkGeek. I will name my first-born child after you for sending me this keyboard.

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Optimus Maximus OLED Keyboard Unboxing

Chris — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:10:43 +0000

Optimus Maximus OLED Keyboard Unboxing is a post from Chris Pirillo

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There were people waiting up to seven hours in my live chat room today. I FINALLY have gotten an Optimus Maximus keyboard, courtesy of ThinkGeek. I am completely stoked, since I’ve wanted this thing for like… EVER. I managed to let it sit on my desk all day, and build anticipation. People in chat ended up being as impatient and excited as I was for the unboxing.

Time to take a second mortgage on your home or break into your kid’s college fund. With the singing of angels and a ray of sunlight parting the clouds, the fabled Optimus Maximus Keyboard has descended from Russian design studio Art Lebedev like an orgasm of geekiness. As you should know by now this amazing keyboard features a tiny screen on each key… that’s 113 screens in all. What can you do with these tiny screens, you ask? Well, each key can change its image dynamically depending on what you’re doing. Hold down SHIFT and all keys go uppercase. Run Photoshop and you can set it so each hotkey has an image representing its function. Set a key to monitor your CPU usage or display what iTunes track you are currently playing. You can make a key into a tiny clock with moving hands and play animated gif files or even quicktime movies. Of course all this futuristic technology is going to cost you a pretty penny… but we figure you’ll just expense the Optimus and tout its “incredible increased efficiency when using PowerPoint hotkeys” in your expense report summary.

This thing is just… fricken AWESOME. From day one, I wanted this keyboard. Now that I have it, I’m in Geek Heaven. Every key is a separate screen. Look how shiny it is!!!! The keys don’t feel awesome, but that’s not the point. It’ll fit really well front and center on my desk.

After much hard work, I finally got the power run behind my desk, and was able to turn the keyboard on. Look at the secksay purple lights backlighting every key. The coolest thing is when it was plugged in. Before being plugged in, the keys on the keyboard had the Windows key, CTRL key, etc on it. You know, native Windows keys. However, when I plugged it in, it immediately recognized that I was using a Mac. Those Windows keys changed over to Mac keys!!! How fricken cool is that?! The OLEDs aren’t actually on the keys, they’re under it.

Don’t worry, you’ll get to see much more of my amazing new keyboard in upcoming videos. All I have left to say is… I HAVE AN OPTIMUS MAXIMUS!!!!.

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Are you a Touch Typist?

Chris — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:33:19 +0000

Are you a Touch Typist? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Xenaol writes: “As many computer gamers and programmers will be aware, the art of typing without looking is a very useful and envied skill to possess. As a result of this, I decided to write this top 5 list of tips to help any learners on their way, so here goes.”

The Keyboard A popular tactic used in typing classes is the blank keyboard with a reference poster for support on the wall. This encourages you to familiarize yourself with the keyboard layout without looking down at it. If you have a spare keyboard, it might be worth coloring out the characters on the keys. Under no circumstances s it recommended you do this on your primary keyboard, just in case you lose your reference sheet (or someone else needs the keyboard/computer!)
Fading Out Deleting all identifying marking on your keyboard is not for everyone. If you are willing to put some extra time into the venture, then you might be more suited to the method of simply typing as you normally would. However, slowly force yourself to look at the keyboard less and less. This method is the one that I used to start learnin before switching over to the blank keyboard. This is evidence that the process is quite flexible.
Keyboard Position You could spend many hours, days and even weeks more than you need to learning this skill if you change the angle that you are at in comparison to the keyboard. This is because your hands and fingers remember each process in terms of the distance they move. A change of angle will normally change the distances, and you will find yourself lost. In addition, changing the type of keyboard should be avoided during the learning process because once again… it changes the key locations relative to your fingers.
Practice & Rest Another obvious but often overlooked thing you can try is to talk to your friends on instant messaging programs. This will create a much more random need for key location, and can speed up the searching process dramatically. After all, if you spent a week solid writing “the red rabbit jumped gracefully over the fence”, you will have to break that routine to type “hey there!” to a friend online. Using any method of learning touch-typing, make sure you take breaks and even change up the methods you use. This will help to refocus your fingers, and increase their accuracy.
Finger-Key Ownership Each of your fingers remembers a key as being in a certain location, and will often have a difference of opinion as to where it really is. To curb this annoying habit, you should allocate a finger to each key of the keyboard. This will decrease the amount of thinking that you will have to do, increase your spelling accuracy over time, and can even encourage you to utilize more of your fingers over time.

As I have tried to emphasize, learning to touch-type can take a lot of time. Some people will master this skill much faster than others, so don’t become discouraged. In addition, remember that even expert typists make mistakes at times, and have to sneak a look at the keyboard!

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What’s Your Favorite Keyboard?

Chris — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:45:20 +0000

What’s Your Favorite Keyboard? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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For a long time, I was using the Microsoft Internet Pro keyboard. The reason I loved it so much is that it had two USB ports in the back. Microsoft stopped producing it, so I’ve been looking for a replacement for it.

My friend Moonglaive recommended this new keyboard. The Enermax Aurora Aluminum Keyboard looks pretty cool, eh? I thougt the keys themselves were aluminum. It turns out they’re plastic with some kind of silverish spray over them. The right Shift, and half the letters have paint worn off of them. The shell of the keyboard is metal, yes. It works very well, and has a couple of USB ports in the back. It also has audio pass-through, which is nice. It was a good keyboard all in all.

The next keyboard I tried out was the Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000. It works really well, and has a touchpad built in. This is the set I was using with my Windows machine, and it works really well for me.

Now, of course, I’m using a Mac as my primary system. So what keyboard am I using? The thin Wireless keyboard from Apple is great. It’s super thin, and I haven’t even had to change batteries! It’s bluetooth enabled, which is really nice. The Apple Wireless Keyboard has been completely redesigned, inside and out. It features an elegant, ultra-thin anodized aluminum enclosure with low-profile keys that provide crisp, responsive feel. It also has function keys for one-touch access to a variety of Mac features such as screen brightness, volume, eject, play/pause, fast-forward and rewind, Expose, and Dashboard. Its compact design fits on your lap or on even the most crowded desk. And its Bluetooth wireless technology lets you use it just about anywhere within 30 feet of your Mac.

The keyboard automatically powers down when you’re not using it and turns on instantly as soon as you start typing. This intelligent power management means you’ll get up to nine months of battery life based on average usage patterns. It also has an on/off switch for when you’re away from your computer for a long time.

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Optimus Maximus Keyboard: Horrible Customer Service

Chris — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:25:39 +0000

Optimus Maximus Keyboard: Horrible Customer Service is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Yes, you read that right. I’ve had it with this company. Their customer service is absolutely horrible. They have canceled my order twice now for the Optimus Maximus keyboard. I’m not a very happy Geek at this point.

A few months ago, this news was huge. Any Geek knows what I’m talking about. However, I feel this is a complete ripoff. This isn’t because of the price. If the keyboard is as it is promised, then the cost is worth it. That’s not the issue I have. I placed one of the first orders, and they sent me an email back saying the order had not gone through. I argued with them, because I know that my credit card was valid and so on. After a lot of going back and forth, they said they had simply canceled my order.

What? Even though I was mad, I lusted after the keyboard still. So, a few months later, Ponzi placed an order to try and buy it for me for Christmas. The problem is, even using a different credit card, the order was again canceled. WHAT?? Something just isn’t right here.

I’m not the only one this has happened to!

I feel this is a scam, and that you should be very wary. If anything, their customer service is just plain bad. The whole ordering process is jacked. Twice now, my order has been canceled for no good reason. If anyone actually orders or has ordered this keyboard… good for you, and good luck to you. However, I’m telling you that you shouldn’t bother.

I feel ripped off, even though they never actually took my money. This product is just so unbelievably amazing looking, and they can’t even be bothered to actually sell it! What’s the deal?

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Windows Key: Keyboard Shortcuts

Chris — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:25:45 +0000

Windows Key: Keyboard Shortcuts is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I find that my computing experience is greatly enhanced by knowing a few really good keyboard shortcuts. I think everyone should know a lot of these basic commands, as it speeds up your work, and makes life just that much easier when you don’t have to reach for the mouse, and can keep your hands on the keyboard. They may seem simple, almost basic computer knowledge, but I’m always surprised how overlooked some of these simple gems are. Between these keyboard shortcuts and a program called “Lauchy” (a command-line application launcher, much like Quicksilver for OSX) which I also suggest, I find I’m far quicker to get from point A to point B, and rarely have to use the start menu, or have icons on my desktop.

Windows Key Yes, everyone knows how much hitting the Windows key in the middle of your full-screen game can ruin your day, but outside of playing games, it can be very useful for more than just pulling up the Start menu. Commands such as:
- Win + D minimizing all of your windows and displaying the desktop. This can be great if you have a lot of stuff up, and just want to get it all out of the way. Hitting Win + D again will bring up your windows just as they were before you hide them all.
- Win + R Opens the “Run…” dialog box. Great to get to the command line, or calculator quickly (typing in cmd or calc respectively) without having to go through the Start menu. It’s also good for re-lauching explorer if it bugs out for some reason. Other good ones to know are msconfig and services.smc, which are great for tweaking both system settings and running services.
- Win + E Opens up the Explorer for “My Computer” Get to files nice and quick, especially with my next tip.
Use your keyboard to navigate folders What? Your keyboard works to navigate folders? Holy file browsing, Batman! Give it a try. Open up your C:\ drive and hit “P” it will immediately jump to the files starting with “P” and if you keep typing, it will keep refining. “Pro” will usually highlight “Program Files” Hit enter to open the folder, and then off you go typing the next folder you want.
Tab and Shift + Tab Tab will move you automatically to the next field within the in-focus window. What does that mean? Well, say you’re composing an e-mail. Type in the To: line as “Chris@Pirillo.com” then instead of clicking on the subject line, you can just hit “Tab” until it highlights the subject line. Type in your subject, hit tab again, and you’re in the body of the e-mail. This works great in conjunction with Win + E, as by default, Windows selects the file tree on the left, and to navigate with the keyboard, you want to have the main field selected which is on the right. Alternatively, Shift + Tab moves you to the previous field. Say you’re in that same e-mail, but you want change the subject. Hitting Shift + Tab while in the body of the e-mail will pull your cursor back up to the subject line, and select all the text in the field.
Alt + Tab While in a window, Alt+Tab will switch between windows on the taskbar. Holding down Alt, and repeatedly hitting tab lets you select which window you want (it gives you a little pop-up on screen) Letting go of alt pulls the window up.
Alt + F4 Closes a window. Plain and simple. It’s the keyboard’s way of hitting the X in the upper right.

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How to Access Your Computer Remotely with a VNC KVM

Chris — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 06:33:19 +0000

How to Access Your Computer Remotely with a VNC KVM is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I have a monitor hooked up to one MacBook Pro, the other monitor hooked up to my Vista desktop machine, and the other MacBook Pro all sitting on the desk here. I have ONE mouse, and ONE keyboard. Now… watch as I play around and move things on all three screens using that one little mouse.

No, I’m not using the Synergy software I had planned to use for this. It’s a pain to install and configure, and it wouldn’t even work. It hasn’t been updated since 2006, and didn’t want to work with Vista or Leopard. So again I turned to my chat room at live.pirillo.com to find an answer. iKteck, who is one of our chat moderators, suggested a totally free program called Win2Vnc. What’s that you said… FREE? I love free, so I went to check it out.

This little program is amazing. The primary machine needs to be a Windows machine. It acts as a VNC Viewer and will connect to any other machine where the VNC service is enabled and running. You cannot drag and drop things from one screen to another, no. To set it up, you simply need to tell the host machine which direction (N, S, E, W) the other machine(s) are from it, and then when you move your mouse in that direction, it will switch over to that machine/system. It can’t get any simpler than that. How it works:

The program will open a small (one pixel wide) window on the edge of your screen. Moving the pointer into this window will trigger the program to take over your mouse and send mouse movements and keystrokes though the RFB protocol to a VNC server running on another machine. When the pointer is moved back towards the opposite edge on the other screen, the mouse is returned to your primary display.

Now, this only works if the host machine is a Windows machine. When I make the final switch over to Leopard as my primary system, I will likely use Teleport at that time. It only works between Mac machines, which is all I will be using then anyway.

All in all, I have to say: Win2Vnc FTW. It’s an excellent program that just works… for free. It doesn’t get better than that.

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Chris Plays Santa and Gives away an LED Keyboard

Chris — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:25:26 +0000

Chris Plays Santa and Gives away an LED Keyboard is a post from Chris Pirillo

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After I reviewed the Saitek LED keyboard, I was unable to actually use it. So, I decided to bring Christmas a little early, and give it away to one of our community members at large.

On October 17th, I reviewed the Saitek Backlit LED Eclipse II USB Keyboard. It’s a great keyboard, and I really wish I could use it all the time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit on my keyboard shelf under my desk. My hands kept hitting the bottom of my desk. So, two days later, I announced I was giving it away.

The day has come, people have registered their guess. Now… let’s give this thing away to a lucky community member!

After many false starts… choosing people who weren’t present in the chat room… we finally find our winner! Congratulations, Perfect_Chaos!!!

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Saitek Backlit LED Eclipse II USB Keyboard Review

Chris — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:25:30 +0000

Saitek Backlit LED Eclipse II USB Keyboard Review is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I absolutely love gadgets and gizmos that glow. The more of a glow it gives off, the more I enjoy it. This is why I was excited to test out this new keyboard from Saitek.

The new Eclipse II keyboard is backlit. You can change to one of three colors: red, blue or purple. The purple works best in my office with the lights off, and also allows me to admire my Tix above the desk. The backlighting has adjustable brightness. Of course, knowing me… I prefer the brightest setting.

The keyboard itself is very good. The keys mash the way I want them to mash. The Windows key is in the correct place. I could see myself switching over to this keyboard permanently, except for one not-so-small issue.

My desk has a keyboard tray underneath it that pulls out. I know many of you have them, as well. This keyboard is bulky. It’s just too thick on the verticle profile. It doesn’t fit well on my keyboard drawer, and my hands hit the underside of my desk. The lip on the front of the keyboard helps a bit, but just not enough. You should never rest your palms on your keyboard. Practicing good ergonomics is critical to your body’s health.

What keyboard do you use? What is your favorite keyboard of all time? Most importantly, what do you look for in a keyboard when you purchase one? Send me an email to chris@pirillo.com or leave me a comment on this video.

UPDATE:

I saw the review of the keyboard and I was excited because I own, and once used, the Saitek Eclipse II. I say own and used because after about 5 weeks the spacebar key broke. It didn’t break all the way off, just one of the glue-pads that holds it on popped off. So now the spacebar is floppy and when I’m typing and try to hit it with my thumbs it feels like it clicks all the way but it doesn’t and I end up typinglikethis. No spaces, bummer. It also sorta seems pretty cheaply made too… :( Now I use a Logitech wireless and I own it for the simple reason of it is very, very flat. I was hoping to get an Apple wireless keyboard for my PC but it’s bluetooth (my PC isn’t) and the ones my store carries doesn’t say that it works on Windows. :(

Keep up all the good work Chris!
Jim Survak (aka Casan0va)

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Protect Your Laptop Keyboard from Liquid Spills

Chris — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:55:48 +0000

Protect Your Laptop Keyboard from Liquid Spills is a post from Chris Pirillo

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About a year ago, I spilled coffee on my desk, and ruined the video card in my Gateway. Liquid and hardware just don’t get along.

A community member at large sent me a frantic Email earlier, saying that he had spilled soda pop on his laptop, and wondering what he can do. Unfortunately, you may not have any luck. It’s quite possible you’ve damaged something beyond repair. It depends on how well your keyboard is enclosed.

If you do spill things on your keyboards, make sure you unplug the keyboard or laptop immediately. If it’s a laptop, pull the battery out as well. Attempt to dry the keyboard off as best you can. I know that Kat had success cleaning her regular pc keyboard after spilling soda on it. She took all the keys off, and dried it really well. Then she used a cotton ball soaked in alcohol to clean up the stickiness, and voila. Keyboard worked again. However, you can’t really take the keys off of laptop keyboards.

If you have a newer laptop, your keyboard may be able to be easily replaced. However, if you have an older style, or even one with vent holes in it, you could have irrepairable damage to it.

Preventing this from happening is easy. You could simply not drink near the computer, or keep a lid/cap on your beverages. You can also get a keyboard skin (cover) specifically made to protect your particular model.

What other tips and tricks do you have for protecting your keyboard, or cleaning it up after a spill? Be sure to let me hear from you!

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How to Handle Remote Tech Support

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:30:00 GMT

Using GoToAssist is the easiest way to view and control another person's computer online. Use it to provide instant technical support to family, friends and customers. Start a session with just one click, and instantly connect with the other party.

Network Tools for Windows

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

You need these network tools, no matter which operating systems and networks you have to support. SolarWinds ipMonitor: Affordable Network Monitoring for SMBs. Get turnkey network, server and application availability monitoring with SolarWinds ipMonitor v9.0. This easy-to-use, reliable solution for SMBs delivers out-of-the-box availability monitoring so you always know exactly what's up with Active Directory, DNS, Exchange, FTP, Web, IMAP, MS SQL Server, and SMTP. Download your free trial today. Or, try their totally free tools! And, through 2/29, save 20% when you purchase ipMonitor 9.0.

Get Your Own Web Site

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

Starting at just $3.99/month, web hosting from GoDaddy includes 99.9% uptime, 24/7 support and free access to GoDaddy Hosting Connection, THE place to install over 30 FREE applications sure to help you get the most from your hosting plan and Web site. Enter code CP2 at checkout, and save an additional 10% on any order.

Plus, as a friend of Chris Pirillo, enter code CHRIS7, that's C-H-R-I-S and the number 7, when you check out, and save an additional 10% on any order. Get your piece of the internet at GoDaddy.com.

VMware and Parallels for Virtual Machines

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels.

Coupons for Online Shopping

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:56:13 GMT

This feed is fueled by Lockergnome Online Shopping and Coupon Codes

Before you shop next time, see if we have a coupon first.