Computer's worst enemy: Wine
 

Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News (Sunday, March
6, 2005, page 10).

Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer retail store's
"Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with laptop Macs. "Wine,"
was the answer. People drinking and typing, spilling on the keyboard, "which
basically ruins the computer," requiring "almost a four-figure" repair job.
Red wine more often than white. [I guess they'd know, wouldn't they.]
Silicon Valley having a higher than average rate of these incidents.

www.paloaltodailynews.com is the general site, though at the moment, the
site warns that most links are temporarily down, and I could not get to an
online version of the text.

Don't drink and type.

"Max Hauser" > wrote in message
...
> Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News (Sunday,
March
> 6, 2005, page 10).
>
> Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer retail
store's
> "Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with laptop Macs.
"Wine,"
> was the answer. People drinking and typing, spilling on the keyboard,
"which
> basically ruins the computer," requiring "almost a four-figure" repair
job.
> Red wine more often than white. [I guess they'd know, wouldn't they.]
> Silicon Valley having a higher than average rate of these incidents.
>
> www.paloaltodailynews.com is the general site, though at the moment, the
> site warns that most links are temporarily down, and I could not get to an
> online version of the text.
>
> Don't drink and type.
>

Sounds like a problem with rookie wine drinkers -- I think that with years
of intensive practice a person can handle both a glass and a keyboard.

Mike P (who is finishing the remnants of dinner's St Joseph as he types)

Max Hauser wrote:
> Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News (Sunday, March
> 6, 2005, page 10).
>
> Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer retail store's
> "Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with laptop Macs. "Wine,"
> was the answer. People drinking and typing, spilling on the keyboard, "which
> basically ruins the computer," requiring "almost a four-figure" repair job.

Well, that's the issue right there. Despite being popular, notebooks
are really actually specialized appliances. You pay a premium for a
compact, integrated package.

At home, I rarely type on a notebook. Ordinary computers with ordinary
$10 USB keyboards are what I drink wine or coffee at.

A perfectly useful machine for Internet surfing is about $500 *brand new*
these days. No reason not to have one if you're gonna trash a notebook
otherwise. Spill a drink into a keyboard, and $10 later (maybe $25) you
have a new keyboard.

Dana

Max Hauser > wrote:

> Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News (Sunday, March
> 6, 2005, page 10).
>
> Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer retail store's
> "Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with laptop Macs. "Wine,"
> was the answer. People drinking and typing, spilling on the keyboard, "which
> basically ruins the computer," requiring "almost a four-figure" repair job.
> Red wine more often than white. [I guess they'd know, wouldn't they.]
> Silicon Valley having a higher than average rate of these incidents.
>
> www.paloaltodailynews.com is the general site, though at the moment, the
> site warns that most links are temporarily down, and I could not get to an
> online version of the text.
>
> Don't drink and type.

Anyone remember a movie from the 80s called "Electric Dreams"? Guy
spills champagne in his computer and it more or less comes to life,
eventually trying to take away the guys girlfriend. Fluff but fun.

Dave

--
There's a fine line between stupid and clever.

Salut/Hi Dana H. Myers,

le/on Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:40:18 -0800, tu disais/you said:-

>Max Hauser wrote:
>> Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News (Sunday, March
>> 6, 2005, page 10).

>> Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer retail store's
>> "Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with laptop Macs. "Wine,"
>> was the answer. People drinking and typing, spilling on the keyboard, "which
>> basically ruins the computer," requiring "almost a four-figure" repair job.
>
>Well, that's the issue right there. Despite being popular, notebooks
>are really actually specialized appliances. You pay a premium for a
>compact, integrated package.

>At home, I rarely type on a notebook. Ordinary computers with ordinary
>$10 USB keyboards are what I drink wine or coffee at.

Exactly, and if you're going to spill coffee over your keyboard, by laughing
explosively over some item in afw, then you need a wireless USB keyboard
with your portable, so you just trash your $20 keyboard!


--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

snip

This only happens with Chateau de Fried Motherboard.

Max Hauser wrote:
> Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News
> (Sunday,
> March 6, 2005, page 10).
>
> Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer
> retail
> store's "Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with
> laptop Macs. "Wine," was the answer. People drinking and typing,
> spilling on the keyboard, "which basically ruins the computer,"
> requiring "almost a four-figure" repair job. Red wine more often
> than
> white. [I guess they'd know, wouldn't they.] Silicon Valley having a
> higher than average rate of these incidents.
> www.paloaltodailynews.com is the general site, though at the moment,
> the site warns that most links are temporarily down, and I could not
> get to an online version of the text.
>
> Don't drink and type.

Initially, the subject made me think this was an OT anti-Linux rant!
Wine is a Linux Windows emulator and I can see Microsoft not liking it
(g).


--
James V. Silverton
Potomac, Maryland, USA

Salut/Hi James Silverton,

Hair splitting time.

le/on Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:34:58 -0500, tu disais/you said:-


>> Don't drink and type.
>
>Initially, the subject made me think this was an OT anti-Linux rant!
>Wine is a Linux Windows emulator and I can see Microsoft not liking it
>(g).

Err.... WINE is an acronym. W - ine I - s N - ot an E - mulator

Smug grin.
--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

Ian Hoare wrote:
> Salut/Hi James Silverton,
>
> Hair splitting time.
>
> le/on Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:34:58 -0500, tu disais/you said:-
>
>
>>> Don't drink and type.
>>
>> Initially, the subject made me think this was an OT anti-Linux
>> rant!
>> Wine is a Linux Windows emulator and I can see Microsoft not liking
>> it (g).
>
> Err.... WINE is an acronym. W - ine I - s N - ot an E - mulator
>
> Smug grin.

As you say! I've never actually used the capitalized version tho' I
have a certain familiarity with the lower case one!

Jim.

Max Hauser wrote:
> Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News (Sunday,
March
> 6, 2005, page 10).
>
> Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer retail
store's
> "Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with laptop Macs.
"Wine,"
> was the answer. People drinking and typing, spilling on the keyboard,
"which
> basically ruins the computer," requiring "almost a four-figure"
repair job.
> Red wine more often than white. [I guess they'd know, wouldn't they.]

> Silicon Valley having a higher than average rate of these incidents.
>
> www.paloaltodailynews.com is the general site, though at the moment,
the
> site warns that most links are temporarily down, and I could not get
to an
> online version of the text.
>
> Don't drink and type.

Indeed, don't - they might revoke your computer license.

Dan-O

I should think that a sugar-loaded soft drink spilled on a keyboard
would be as destructive as wine. The keyboaed would have to be taken
apart to clean out the sticky residue.

But this problem pales on comparison to what some small children have
done to VCRs. They see adults inserting things into the VCR, so monkey
see - monkey do. Quite a few VCRs have had a variety of foreign objects,
including peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pushed into the tape slot
by small children. The wife of a distant relative just stopped her small
children in time. They had put the family cat in the clothes dryer and
were trying to figure out how to start it.

Reply to .

"Cwdjrx _" > wrote in message
...

> I should think that a sugar-loaded soft drink spilled on a
> keyboard
> would be as destructive as wine. The keyboaed would have to be
> taken
> apart to clean out the sticky residue.


I've never tried it myself, but I'm told by people I respect that
if such a thing happens, you should soak the keyboard in a
bathbub of water, then let it dry.

It sounds weird to me too, but considering how low the price of a
keyboard is, and the difficulty of taking it apart, if it
happened to me, I'd try it.

--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup

Ken Blake wrote:

> I've never tried it myself, but I'm told by people I respect that
> if such a thing happens, you should soak the keyboard in a
> bathbub of water, then let it dry.
>
> It sounds weird to me too, but considering how low the price of a
> keyboard is, and the difficulty of taking it apart, if it
> happened to me, I'd try it.
>

That should probably work, Ken, but in times past (when keyboards were
considerably more expensive) remediation from coffee and soft drink
spills (no wine in the workplace, please!) was carried out with
supercritical CO2, otherwise known in the coffee biz as the "Swiss water
process." Since most households aren't equipped with supercritical CO2
production, soaking in water might be the most practical solution -- but
I'd use distilled water to make sure that no salt deposits were left in
the keyboard and dry the thing for a week before putting any current
through it.

Mark Lipton

I have to admit that this happened to me! A little white wine splashed on
my Powerbook and with a puff of smoke it died! Macs seem particularly sensitive
to this! I have spilled all kinds of things on my Dell laptop with no
ill effects. I am going to say it is a design flaw!


Dimitri

Actually many remote controls and keyboards are not too difficult to
take apart and clean. It just takes considerable time. Even if you do
not spill liquids in remotes and keyboards, their action sometimes
becomes erratic with time. I must have cleaned 5 or 6. Some were old
remotes that could not be replaced easily. I have one remote that is
over 30 years old and attaches to an open reel tape recoder via a cable.
The most difficult thing often is finding out how to unsnap and unscrew
the cases. If you have to hire this done, it usually is not cost
effective unless you have a very expensive control or one that can not
be replaced. The technique for cleaning varies with the type of control.
Some people, especially those who have small children, keep their
remotes in plastic Ziploc bags. Most controls work well in the bag. This
might also work when you have a party where some drink too much wine -
not members of this group, of course :-) .

Reply to .

D. Gerasimatos wrote:
> I have to admit that this happened to me! A little white wine
splashed on
> my Powerbook and with a puff of smoke it died! Macs seem particularly
sensitive
> to this! I have spilled all kinds of things on my Dell laptop with no

> ill effects. I am going to say it is a design flaw!
>
>
> Dimitri

The Mac that I had was designed to dissapate heat through the keyboard
so it was virtually "open" underneath the keyboard. The design was
intended to make the Mac thinner since it didn't need a fan or motor to
deal with the heat build up from the power transformer. Good idea-bad
design.

Mark Lipton wrote:
> Ken Blake wrote:
>
> > I've never tried it myself, but I'm told by people I respect that
> > if such a thing happens, you should soak the keyboard in a
> > bathbub of water, then let it dry.
> >
> > It sounds weird to me too, but considering how low the price of a
> > keyboard is, and the difficulty of taking it apart, if it
> > happened to me, I'd try it.
> >
>
> That should probably work, Ken, but in times past (when keyboards
were
> considerably more expensive) remediation from coffee and soft drink
> spills (no wine in the workplace, please!) was carried out with
> supercritical CO2, otherwise known in the coffee biz as the "Swiss
water
> process." Since most households aren't equipped with supercritical
CO2
> production, soaking in water might be the most practical solution --
but
> I'd use distilled water to make sure that no salt deposits were left
in
> the keyboard and dry the thing for a week before putting any current
> through it.
>
> Mark Lipton

At one time, I knew a guy who "cleaned" his PC keyboard by taking it
into the shower with him. Then, he put it out in the sun to dry. (Sun
is mighty scarce here in the NE US right now!)

Dan-O (never tried it - not an endorsement!)

In article >, says...
>
>Remarkable item in today's Palo Alto [California] Daily News (Sunday, March
>6, 2005, page 10).
>
>Diana Diamond reports asking a consultant at an Apple Computer retail store's
>"Genius Bar" what was the principal repair problem with laptop Macs. "Wine,"
>was the answer. People drinking and typing, spilling on the keyboard, "which
>basically ruins the computer," requiring "almost a four-figure" repair job.
>Red wine more often than white. [I guess they'd know, wouldn't they.]
>Silicon Valley having a higher than average rate of these incidents.
>
>www.paloaltodailynews.com is the general site, though at the moment, the
>site warns that most links are temporarily down, and I could not get to an
>online version of the text.
>
>Don't drink and type.

Maybe I've just been lucky so far, but the biggest problem that I have
experienced when mixing wine and computers is what I write, as all of the wine
has been effectively been poured safely into me! I've now taken to doing TN's
in the word processor, and then editing it (if I can make sense of it,
especially near the end of the notes) before I post it.

Hunt

> That should probably work, Ken, but in times past (when keyboards
were
> considerably more expensive) remediation from coffee and soft drink
> spills (no wine in the workplace, please!) was carried out with
> supercritical CO2, otherwise known in the coffee biz as the "Swiss
water
> process." Since most households aren't equipped with supercritical
CO2
> production, soaking in water might be the most practical solution

Hi Mark,

This is one of the most unplausible co2 applications ever, however I do
have the equipment available here so I could try something. My I-book
touchpad works bad and if it curable by putting it in a autoclave and
pressure it up to 200 bar would help that would be amazing. Possibly
all rubber parts will swell and foam when depressurising however,
making up for a nice piece of art........ I do have an old notebook
somewhere that could be victimised!!

Hubert