It's a rare occasion when there are two posts to MYOB in a single day, but something just came across my desk that really can't wait until tomorrow. It's an article from the BBC News web site with the unappetizing title "Keyboards 'dirtier than a toilet'.
According to the report, a recent study by a British consumer group called Which? found that four out of the thirty-three keyboards tables in its London office were a potential health risk. One was home to more than five times the germs of the office's toilet seats. A microbiologist ordered that keyboard quarantined until it could be cleaned.
The consumer group said one of the causes of dirty keyboards was people eating at their desks. Crumbs get into the keyboard and encourage the growth of bacteria like E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus.
A similar study at the University of Arizona last year determined that the average office desktop could have as many as 400 times the bacteria of the average office toilet seat.
Sara Kidner of Which? advises that you give your keyboard a spring cleaning. How? Turn the thing upside down and shake out dust and crumbs. At Tacony we reccommend you give it a good work over with a powerful vacuum cleaner. (If you don't have a good vac, we know who makes the best ones.) Then go over the keys with a good disinfectant, either the wipes that are specifically for keyboards, or a soft cloth soaked in a disinfectant.
Shared computers should be cleaned more often and it's not a bad idea to keep a bottle of waterless hand disinfectant on your desk. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my own advise and clean my keyboard and my laptop.
A computer virus is a bug in the computer that can replicate multiple times in the host computer. When the host computer is used for to transfer information via USB or email, it is highly probable that the virus would also spread into the USB and the email recipient's mail box. So let's make sure our computers are protected, my friends.
Posted by: Carlene Schnitzer | November 10, 2011 at 11:50 AM