One day I was leaving the office and there was one other developer left. He was a much older guy (like in his 70’s – great C++ developer) and he was cleaning his keyboard, having many of the keys already removed. Unfortunately he had a chat window focused with one of our remote developers at the time, so there was all these random keystrokes sent as chat messages over the last few minutes. He hadn’t noticed that the other developer was frantically asking if he was OK, or if he should call the paramedics. Since the keyboard was missing keys he couldn’t respond, so I went back to my desk and explained things to this remote developer. It was quite funny after the fact.
That is why I always make sure I have notepad focused when I clean my keyboard.
… and this is why I always lock my session with [WIN]+L when I clean my keyboard.
Just did it yesterday
Just press Windows-L before cleaning the keyboard.
Hit Win+L in Windows to lock your computer. Best way to avoid anything bad.
Wow, is there an echo in here?
Or just unplug it and throw it in the dish washer – not that I’ve ever done this myself, but I did see on of my friends clean his keyboard with a hose after spilling a bottle of coke across it.
@Alister: I’ve heard that being done, but I have never done it myself either. Just make sure it is dry before plugging it in.
@Christin, @Primoz & @Francois: Sorry, your comments were detained for approval, so everyone might think it odd you said the same thing . . .
ever thought of turning your computer off before cleaning the keyboard?
Dishwasher worked very well for me.
@tondrej: Do you disassemble the keyboard before you put it into the dishwasher?
Man! This sets up like a Deep Thought. I was waiting for something like, “But that’s when I felt the handcuffs go on.”