Cleaning (again!)

Alright, I think I'm going to end threads about cleaning once and for all. Today (I mean yesterday), out of boredom, I decided to clean up my most "beloved" one: my computer. That's right, I've cleaned everything from the monitor to the CPU, but not that thoroughly until cleaning every piece of hardware inside, which I will only do to dead machines. The thing I've gotten rid of is, of course, dusts that accumulated since the last time I've posted about cleaning my computer.

Except for this time, I've put the keyboard as the hardware that required thorough cleaning. Well, I think I've not cleaned it for more than a year already. Why would I want to clean it anyway? Keyboards just look perfectly normal on the outside, but let's not look at it that superficially. If you'd paid attention to the spaces between the keys and the "bank" of the keyboard, you can see that there are so many small debris apart from dusts, from hairs, to food and even dead bugs.

Because of the dirtiness of my keyboard I had wasted more than an hour to remove most of the debris and hell I didn't even completely clean it due to apparatus limitation. Anyway I'm going to cover the basic steps of cleaning your keyboard in this post in case you don't know how to do it.

First things first, you have to pick each and every keys out, using your own hand (if the keys are easy enough to be removed), or the better choice, a flat-head screwdriver. As you can see, if you positioned your screwdriver like this your keys will be easily picked without using much force. If you have to pick them forcefully, that means something is wrong, but it depends on your keyboard. Keyboards having different kinds of key contacts might need a different way to pick the keys, so you have to know your keyboard well. I'll not be liable for any damages done to your keyboard ==

After picking your keys, you, of course, start cleaning up the inside of your keyboard.

Partially cleaned...

It should be an easy job if you had a dedicated keyboard vacuum, but if you already have it this post is meaningless to you anyway. By the way, if you don't have a keyboard vacuum, I assume that you are rational enough to not use a conventional vacuum cleaner that you use on the floor to clean your keyboard, right? You can use a wet cloth, or like me, use a combination of wet cloth and this "bug" here to maximize the cleaning effect.

Talking of this bug, it operates with 2 AA size cells and is very useful to suck up dust and small debris on hard surfaces such as tables and in this case, the keyboard. Of course it didn't manage to suck up everything so I have to use the screwdriver to move the dirt a bit before sucking them up. With these removed it will be a lot easier for you to wipe the internals with a wet cloth (actually, not that easy too due to the "porous" surface).
Cleaning the bug is pretty easy, just open the cover below and wipe off all the dusts and debris trapped on the filter with a cloth or just your finger. Done.

Finally, when you're satisfied, just simply reinstall the keys according to their arrangement and there you go, a cleaner keyboard that looks more refreshing, without any strategic improvements. Well actually, it might keep pests or insects away from your keyboard lol if you always eat in front of your computer. Who knows if they do make their nest inside it? Especially if you have those high quality gaming keyboard that easily cost a few hundred bucks, you won't be that generous to share your keyboard with them, will you? ;)

Godspeed.

Approaching Chinese New Year..

My Mapling fever have started to subside after 1 week. I admit, the fever did subside, but I didn't say that it has completely subsided so I'm still addicted to it, just not as serious as before. I had many stories that I would like to share but for some reasons the screen shots failed and are all corrupted. Zz.

I managed to collect another 1800 Rascal Snowpieces these few days to help Darren exchange an Ice Chair. Since he helped me so much, and he's busy with his college studies currently, so I should repay his kindness with the least I can manage to do. Now he sure does looks cool on that chair.

By the way, it's just a week before we, the Chinese, are going to celebrate Chinese New Year. Well yeah time flies. I have never thought that it's CNY next week, and never had the mood to celebrate it though. Nothing special, really. Every year, I just get to go back hometown in Johor, have Reunion Dinner, get Angpau, play computer, lose in gambling, sleep, and lastly come back to my home. This cycle bored the hell out of me, just take the journey to Johor, at least 4 hours will be wasted on highway. In addition, Angpaus I got never increases, but I think they decreases every year!

But, I heard from my parents that we may be going hometown at the 2nd Lunar Day(年初二) instead of the usual CNY Eve(除夕). Okay that sounded a little overboard. Why on earth are we still going back like that? I would rather stay at home for the whole CNY. 2nd Lunar Day depart = night arrive, and then my cousins would most probably return home at 3rd Lunar Day = face my elders = nothing talk = play computer = LONELY. No difference in being lonely here or there. Plus, lesser Angpaus. Oh, I get it. We get lesser Angpaus so that they can give lesser Angpaus as well. Economic recession ma, I fully understand.

Ok I was just kidding about that Angpau part. They aren't stingy enough to do that just to save money. Perhaps my mom just wants to pray at our own home on CNY to bring us good luck, causing the delay.

Anyway, preparations to celebrate CNY is on the way. New clothes, decorations, are bought, I guess. That's not the main part la, by this time we should have been cleaning our houses already. Everyone knows we are not allowed to clean our houses during CNY, especially with brooms, to avoid our money being "swept" away.

Me, being a good boy, have actually started cleaning my house before I got that Mapling fever. Just take that fan cleaning as the starting point. I wouldn't post everything that I have done, or else there will be more crap posts in this blog.. Wndows wiped, ceiling fan cleaned, and any traces of dust in my room had been taken care of. I did say dust, but not the messy appearance of my desk.

My mom always said, messy desk = messy mind = bad for studies. Now perhaps that's the reason why I sucked at my studies all the time. Shall tidy them up soon before entering college or going Form 6, or else I'm going to fail in my life.

Vincent out.

Fan-cleaning

Finally, this post came out as promised in my last post.

Things started to get fishy a few months back when I started to sneeze violently straight after I woke up everyday. I was wondering, did I make any rivals that speak bad things about me? I had insomnia from this matter (well not really, it's SPM when it started, i guess).

Until that time approaching New Year, I saw this...

Bloody hell just look at that! I failed to expect the expected, it's my standing fan that I used everyday but never paid attention to it. So that's the reason to why I'm sneezing a lot. My dad even said that the fan has not been cleaned for 1 year! LOL

And so I decided to clean this fan at New Year's day. It was a hard + hard task. Considering my condition for not sleeping for the whole night, my hand was trembling badly during the whole process...and not to leave out that the fan isn't really that "cleaner-friendly".

To start it off, I had to unscrew 4 screws to remove the back cover of the fan, and it didn't look beautiful either. Anyway, cleaning that part was fairly easy.

One wipe across it...

and this was how the wiping cloth looked like!

Next I had to unscrew another 3 screws to remove the core of the fan which obviously is the spinning part that creates air flow to blow my @$$ when I am sleeping. It was covered with dust, which explains why device efficiency has lowered (in other words, smaller air flow with more sound produced). Fortunately I just need to clean it with water hose.

Before

After

Here comes the hardest part, the front cover.

I call it The Tower of Dusts

There are many obvious obstacles you can see from the pictures, and the spaces are not as shallow as the ones found at the back cover. I have used 1 hour+ just to wipe off those dusts that are easily wiped by the cloth, and another half hour for thorough cleaning...test of mental and physical fitness...more like a torture.
Nevertheless, I still managed to finish the task despite my bad condition. And the result:

Increased efficiency (larger air flow, lesser sound produced). Most importantly, I have started not to sneeze that much after I have cleaned that fan =D. Hooray!

Off-topic: I have turned 18 officially yesterday. Have to say I received a lot of greetings compared to my past birthdays, 3 from MSN, 3 from Friendster (strangers zz), another 3 by SMS (which included my good friend suffering in NS, and a female friend actually typed a birthday song in her SMS, you are the only one to give me a birthday song *touched*). Thanks to all of you.

All of you might think, "wtf you call 9 greetings a lot??", yeah it's true, the greetings I received in my past birthdays never exceed 5. To add up, my family didn't even remember my birthday since last year. Pathetic eh you say?

Anyway, I have made one and only one birthday wish, and I'm telling it out. Why you ask, because this is actually the wish of everyone who cares for their future! You dare to say "getting 11A1 in SPM" is not what you have wanted for your whole life??!!

Haha, ok la. Until then, ciaoz.