On 7/30/11 3:28 PM, Tom wrote:
I think I just discovered something. I have a wired Apple mouse with
one of those little trackballs on the top, the kind that eventually
gets sticky and don't work. Well, the trackball on mine was typical:
it didn't work. Sometimes I could get pages to scroll down, but not
up. I did the usual things to try to fix it: dripped alcohol and other
cleaning fluids on the ball and turned the mouse upside down and
worked the ball around and around until dirty liquid seeped out and
then the ball sort of worked again, only to fail all over again after
a little while. I just gave up on it.
Well, my wife brought home one of those Magic Eraser things from Home
Depot. Sort of a small white sponge that you add a little water to and
then wipe dirt off things with. She gave it to me because I was
complaining about how dirty and grubby my keyboard was getting. Well,
this Magic Eraser really did clean up my keyboard. A couple of swipes
across each key and it was gleaming white just like new. (This is
starting to sound like a commercial, but it's not). Anyway, there was
the old mouse sitting there too so I wiped it down as well, and in the
process rolled the trackball around with the sponge some, and then
forgot about it.
The next time I used the mouse, the track ball worked much better,
though it was still a little sticky when scrolling up. I didn't pay
much attention to it. But whatever is in that Magic Eraser thing
wasn't done working, I guess, because now, a few days later, the
trackball works perfectly, left, right, up, and down. I wonder what's
in that eraser thing?
On the downside, I had a glass of water sitting next to my keyboard
(the very thin aluminum kind), and I bumped it over on the keyboard.
The water went all over the keys. Instantly I turned the board over
and set it on a towel, and tapped on it, hoping to drain out all the
water. Then I fired up a hair dryer and held the keyboard upside down
and dried the heck out of it. All to no avail. The keyboard is dead.
Tapping on keys gets no response whatever on the screen.
I can't figure out how to Magic Erase the inside of a keyboard,
assuming it would work. Does anyone know a way this dead keyboard
might be resuscitated?
When I run keyboards thru the dishwasher I usually let them stand on one
end (against wall, etc) 24-48 hours then flip other end up for same time.
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