10-25-2004, 05:03 PM

Well here's a bittersweet story, on Sunday 24 October I decided to give my keyboard a clean. My white eMac keyboard had loads of crap underneath the keys causing some of them to jam. I've cleaned it many times before so I took out the keys, put them in a bowl of water, and got a brush onto the keyboard itself. After some thorough cleaning I carefully put all the keys back onto the board after leaving it for a while to stand.

I switch on the Mac and it starts typing 3333333 and 4444 in my login screen by itself, I just thought it was still wet so I stood it upside down for a few hours or so. I then tried again and no luck. The keys simply would not work.
I removed the keys again and put the hair dryer on it in a last attempt to dry it out and hopefully fix it. But still no joy.
I realised I'd completely goosed my eMac's keyboard Sad
Lesson learned - never use water on a keyboard or near one, no matter how petty the amount.

I decided to try and get a replacement today. It was a hard job, the Apple ones are too expensive and basic so I decided to opt for a different brand of USB keyboard. Next to impossible, in the local Dixons and branch of The Computer Shop near us nearly all the keyboards were PS/2 connections and the ones that weren't were expensive cordless USB ones.

Then I came across a nice £30 Chicony USB cordless keyboard/mouse set. I liked it. Sure, it was black and silver and clashed with my eMac's white, but it goes with my Hewlett Packard Deskjet 5650 printer so not all bad. The software it came equipped with was Windows, but I decided to pay the £30 and give it a try.
Low and behold it worked! And I must say using cordless hardware is so much nicer, and this keyboard is much nicer to use than the one that came as standard with my Mac. The mouse is nice too, having 2 buttons and a scroll wheel is like driving a Mercedes compared to the 1 button mouse I was used to.

The only gripes I have with it, which are fairly minor, is the eject function. At first I crapped myself thinking I can't eject discs but right click and eject works nicely when there is a disk in the drive, and iTunes can eject the drive for you. Changing the volume is a bit more irritating however, having to delve into System prefs if it isnt only iTunes or Quicktime I want to change the volume of. But I am soon investing in some nice beasty speakers (the original speakers dont quite cut it for me) so that will make everything easy.

So there you go, you wouldnt think it but I am actually happier using some PC-style hardware on my Mac. It feels much nicer to use, and its almost like using a new computer. A blessing in disguise one might say.

10-25-2004, 05:41 PM

I see you like to tell stories...
now a little tip for you: you can have the volume control in menu bar, instead of opening system preferences. there is a little box in sound preferences pane called "show volume in menu bar", check it and then you can adjust your volume by dragigg the controll with mouse from the menu bar

10-25-2004, 05:57 PM

Thanks for that, the volume control is now in the menu.
Another cool tip I found out is if you hold down the F12 key on a regular PC keyboard it also functions as an eject key on a Mac.

10-26-2004, 12:36 PM

Other ways to eject disks:
- Drag the disk icon to the Trash
- Hit Command-E
- Under Panther, click the Eject symbol next to the volume in the Finder sidebar
- Under Panther, add the Eject icon to the Finder toolbar
- Add the Eject menu item to the menu bar

But F12 is the best way to open the tray if you don't have a CD in there already.
(Hooray for slot-load drives)

11-18-2004, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by technologist

Other ways to eject disks:
- Drag the disk icon to the Trash
- Hit Command-E
- Under Panther, click the Eject symbol next to the volume in the Finder sidebar
- Under Panther, add the Eject icon to the Finder toolbar
- Add the Eject menu item to the menu bar

But F12 is the best way to open the tray if you don't have a CD in there already.
(Hooray for slot-load drives)

I have now got some great speakers, an external IDE caddy so I now have a whopping 90Gb space, I also have a 4-port USB hub!


Here is my Mac in February 2004:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nadrumm...c/macfeb04.jpg

And here it is how it is now with all the new hardware:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nadrumm...november04.jpg

11-18-2004, 03:24 PM

I have an additional lesson:
NEVER use water on ANY electronic device, unless it's waterproof (which most keyboards, mice, computer, laptops, PDAs, mobile phones etc aren't).

They don't write that in manuals for fun...

:cool:

11-18-2004, 11:05 PM

What this FireFox thing everyone raving on about?

11-19-2004, 03:06 AM

Originally Posted by hype.it

What this FireFox thing everyone raving on about?

Firefox is a browser, based on the Mozilla suite.
Check www.mozilla.org

11-19-2004, 03:49 PM

its a good browser, but i use safari

11-21-2004, 01:27 AM

I prefer Safari... only cause i haven't worked out how to move the 5Mb+ of bookmarks to FireFox - They are all neatly organized.

11-21-2004, 11:43 AM

Arent the favourites from safari imported into firefox the fist time you run it? It does that with IE on a PC when you get firefox.

11-22-2004, 04:06 AM

Nope, it just imports IE and Mozilla/Netscape bookmarks

11-22-2004, 04:52 AM

sad they should set it up

11-22-2004, 05:02 AM

Firefox is nice to have when safari has compatibility issues... Firefox seems a lot better in that respect...

But Safari is still my day-to-day browser of choice

But for PC users, it must be bliss!

11-22-2004, 05:01 PM

On the PC, Firefox or Mozilla are a must...IEs security flaws, non-tabbed browsing and being too much integrated in the system is just not the right way...

Anyway...don't you think we got way off topic here?!? :eek: