The Computer Thread

Apparently the chemistry of my skin oils likes to destroy key labels on the keyboards that I buy. If I didn't know touch typing I'd be replacing them annually.

you know, that generally seems like a reason to get some form of visual correction or use accessibility features, not... ignore ergonomic considerations.

Yeah, that's a bugger. Drove me mad for ages because it's so ugly. Went and got a more expensive keyboard, though, so the legends aren't a cheap silkscreen any more and should last... well, probably thirty odd years, in this case.

Mine too, several of my keys have gone blank already. It was even worse on my old one. They don't make them like they used to, it seems.

That's because keyboards have generally gotten a LOT cheaper. And just printing the legend on is way cheaper than dye sublimation or like... double shot injection to make the legend literally a separate material. Or anything else I forgot off the top of my head.

Do you have recommendations for specific brands that do a better job? I really like chromatic backlighting, like on Razer products, but this is the second Cynosa keyboard that I've worn the labels off of.

Before that, I had Microsoft Internet keyboards, and those lost the labels too, so it's not just limited to one brand.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 7th 2024 at 11:18:51 AM

Nope, it's generally more of a thing in the DIY keyboard space. There MIGHT be something more practical (or hell, just a compatible set of keycaps), but I wouldn't know. And my keyboard was unreasonably expensive.

Unicomp still makes Model M's, but they're not exactly... colourful. Plus loud.

Well, Razer claims that its Ornata series has "UV-coated keycaps", supposedly improving wear resistance. They're not too expensive (I'm not spending $250 on a keyboard!) so probably worth a try.

Yeah, Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboards have this too, despite being otherwise pretty good quality.

I have never had this issue with any of the laptops I have owned...

I wonder if laptop keyboards are made to a higher standard since you cant replace them or something.

You're right, laptop keyboards don't seem to wear out the same way as standalone ones do.

No, I wore through laptop keyboards in just the same way. Now, I haven't done it to the work laptop I have yet, but I'll give Apple credit for not being super cheap there. I'll take a closer look at the keys tomorrow, though, or maybe see if I can find some diagram or the like—I suspect they're not printed on. But yeah, I also have the laptop I bought at the start of university, and that is in terrible condition. I started using external keyboards because things like the S key didn't work any more.

It might be that laptop keyboards are made to a higher standard, but that could be highly variable. It was a pretty damn expensive—and heavy—business laptop that I was using at the time.

Edited by RainehDaze on Feb 7th 2024 at 10:39:26 AM

Those free USB sticks in your drawer are somehow crappier than you thought: Rejected chips, hidden microSD cards plague the USB stick market.

The long and short of it: don't trust USB sticks with anything important, and be wary of external storage, especially from Amazon. Chances are it is made out of subpar chips that didn't pass quality control, or is full of cheap junk that misrepresents itself to Windows and doesn't actually deliver the capabilities it promises.

I just bought sandisk ones when I need new stuff.

Yeah, I think the unspoken conclusion is, don't buy cheap crap, buy quality.

I've been reading/watching articles warning about fake flash memory drives for ages.

The bigger one to watch out for is shoddy SSD's, which can do all the same things, but even if they don't might miss crucial things like any form of cache chip, which just cripples their performance.

I guess some people will buy disreputable SSDs without looking... that is, after all, what all those fraudulent sales count on. But I would never purchase anything other than a reputable brand. My data is too important.

I remember I used them a LOT in high school but I kept losing them so I ended up saving everything to my emails instead

Yeah, but this is also about those cheap USB sticks companies hand out, which can easily get used as storage eventually when people don't realize.

I have been leery of USB sticks for a while.

Everything important I have on USB HDD's since they are pennies/GB in the US.

You may want to be wary of those, too. Cheap external storage has much the same issues.

I only buy Seagate and I buy new.

WD sold USB harddrives that were "encrypted" - meaning the firmware made it so that they ceased working if it crashed and worse you couldn't get your data back. They don't get my money anymore.

I had a Seagate fail on me after 6 years of use.

Amazon hides cheaper items with faster delivery, lawsuit alleges: Hundreds of millions of Amazon's US customers have overpaid, class action says.

Oh, absolutely. You can tell when you try to search for the same item on different language versions of the site. If something seems unreasonably priced, it always pays to check a different language version and order from there (your profile will work on all language versions, even if your password manager thinks they are different websites).

Huh, clever tip. Thanks!

OpenAI just cracked text-to-video.

This is not gonna be a good development in cracking down on deepfakes.