A recent twitter post by Skawtnyc was brought to my attention. The enigmatic tweet can be read here. This simple statement brought back something I had completely forgotten about: washing keyboards in a dishwasher. Can it be done? Is it recommended?

If you’re an avid gamer like me, your keyboard probably goes through a great deal of abuse use. I’ve often thought that all gaming systems should come equipped with the sturdiest keyboard possible, and for years, used an old IBM Model M. I’d often joke that if my chair broke, I could lay the keyboard across two cinder blocks and use it as a bench. I’ve since graduated to a Logitech G15.

My keyboard is tough, but would it survive the wash cycle of a dishwasher? There are dishwasher safe keyboards out there being marketed to hospitals, but what about normal keyboards? What makes a keyboard dishwasher safe to begin with? A little digging has yielded me some confusing results.

An Engadget post from 2005 suggests your keyboard is (maybe) dishwasher safe. Nell Greenfieldboyce at NPR experimented with the idea in 2007, with good results, despite Microsoft’s Sean Butterworth’s warnings cited in the article. Despite Skawtnyc’s and Nell Greenfieldboyce’s experiences, I don’t think I’ll be putting my G15 in the dishwasher anytime soon.

In spite of all this, a recent Lifehacker article spells out why I may be concerned about my keyboard’s hygiene: the average keyboard harbors more harmful bacteria than areas of your house you certainly wouldn’t want to eat from. It’s rather sobering to think my hands come into contact with grime of this magnitude. I’m thinking a can of compressed air and some alcohol should probably do the trick. A tutorial on how to do a thorough job can be found here. 

For laptop owners concerned with cleanliness, VideoJug has a wonderful tutorial on how to get the job done.

For those of you concerned about the inside of your computer, wikiHow has some great tips on keeping your system free of spyware and running in tiptop shape!

For those of you still curious about putting your keyboards in the dishwasher, do so at you own risk, but please come back and tell me how it worked.

It’s not that I intended for this week to be themed t-shirt week, but I stumbled across a goodie mentioned by the folks on Ideas and Gadgets and couldn’t pass it up. This one may not have the fashion appeal that edoc laundry’s tee’s do, but the functionality, yes functionality, of this Animated Wi-Fi Detector T-Shirt is quite intriguing. The clever folks at Think Geek have done it again. They have found a way to make a Wi-Fi detector very mobile, wearable and extremely affordable (only $29.99). No more turning on the PC to see if there is a connection. You can now light up, for all to see, when it detects a signal. Nothing says, “ I am Grand Geek Poobaa” at the local coffee shop quite like this shirt.

If you’re scoping out Father’s Day gifts, I highly recommend adding this one to your list for the Gadget-Geek Dads.  Batteries not included.  Conversation starting, guaranteed.

This definitely got me to thinking: if we can put a Wi-Fi detector on a shirt, where else could we put it?  How do we “doll up” this functionality to make it Chic-Geek friendly? First thoughts are on one of my fav Hermes scarves:

 
I would proudly wear this scarf with Wi-Fi lights without geek shame. Detect away, in haute fashion.

What accessory would you put this detector on? Looking forward to your comments and thoughts.

While Word Spy cites a story by Terry Massey in the July 11, 2003 Myrtle Beach Sun-News as the term’s origin, for me the “staycation” phenomenon — spending time enjoying the joys of home instead of costly travel –  was born Memorial Day Weekend 2008.

With the end of the rapid ascent of fuel prices nowhere in sight, investing in home entertainment might be a great alternative to burning through tankfuls of liquid gold. If you’re in the market for a scorching deal for those scorching staycation nights, you might be interested in $700 off a 46-inch High Definition Flat Panel LCD TV –  the Sony® BRAVIA® W-Series KDL-46W3000.

Imagine you’re reading a brochure for a tropical resort: Immerse yourself in brilliant color and amaze yourself with the depth and clarity from the wide 46-inch screen. With a contrast ratio of 1800:1, images come alive with life-like color and sound. Featuring HDMI™ (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) and PC connectivity, you can seamlessly hook up compatible PCs and components to the large display. With a light sensor to monitor ambient light in the room, the TV automatically adjusts screen brightness making for comfortable viewing sans strain.

Offer good until 7 a.m. Central tomorrow. Pina coladas not included.

There’s a pretty cool event going on as you read this out in Carlsbad, Calif - the D: All Things Digital conference. Conversations from it have been lighting up the front page of Techmeme since last night. For those who aren’t familiar with it, D6 is a two day-event during which tech industry leaders and luminaries share the stage with Walt Mossberg and/or Kara Swisher and participate in frank discussions about their companies, their products and prognosticate about the future.  Michael Dell chatted with Walt earlier today and they covered a wide range of topics.

Hats off to Brian Lam of Gizmodo as he seems to have caught Michael roaming the halls between sessions and saw he was carrying something our Ideastorm contributors will recognize. Michael positioned it as the perfect device for the next billion internet users.  While we can’t share any details, we can share these (click on them to see a larger version):

Stay tuned for details.

Real music lovers – like my wife, who is amassing a collection of digitized tunes that at last count can run non-stop for 28 days – are always on the hunt for new ways to glean more information about favorite artists and discover new ones. ReadWriteWeb highlights a Web site called The Rock Hard Times, which is described as a combination of IMDB for music and Wikipedia because it allows you to add content about musicians and bands.

There’s a lot of information on some artists – Kanye West’s page for example – but if you search for artists like Dolly Parton or John Maher Mayer, you find there is little to none. Not to discount it entirely, the site has great potential once people add more content. But it’s not quite on the level of IMDB or Wikipedia just yet.

So if you’re a music fan and want to help get this project off the ground, head over to www.trht.net and share your knowledge.

When you see the word “photo” in the description of a color inkjet printer, it is natural to assume that printer is going to give you some high quality photo printouts. So you may be surprised when the quality of what they print on the first try is somewhat lacking. With that in mind, here are a few tips to help you get the best photographic quality out of your color inkjet printer.

Number 1: Paper matters.  Most people realize that plain bond paper doesn’t really produce great photo quality. The colors do tend to bleed a bit into the fibers of the paper, resulting in a softer and sometimes muddy image. Printing on glossy photo paper will always result in a sharper and more distinct photograph.

Number 2: Ink also matters. Dell photo printers have two cartridge carriers that hold a color and a black and white ink cartridge. But when you’re printing your photos on glossy photo paper, you will want to replace the black cartridge with a photo cartridge. The photo cartridge adds a wider range of color to the finished print.

Number 3: Size really matters. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to print all your images in the largest possible size. Far from it! Each image contains a total number of pixels and the more pixels you have, the more information there is for the printer to use in printing your photo. So a 5X7 with 300 pixels per inch is going to have more detail and better sharpness than one with 72 pixels per inch. Keep that resolution fairly high to get the best results from your printer.

Number 4: Check the settings on the printer. When you set up a printing job, it pays to go in and manually select the image quality and paper type. Most printers have default settings that are designed to produce a standard document on normal bond paper. Using those default settings, photos will look washed out with noticeable banding. Changing to photo quality setting on photo/glossy paper can make a world of difference as you can see in the scanned images below:

The left side, above, was printed on default settings. The right side was printed with the photo quality setting and with photo/glossy paper selected.

Number 5: Edit those images before printing. Getting the light balance right is more than just a matter of setting the camera on auto and pointing it. Sometimes you have to open the image in software and adjust the brightness and contrast or even the color balance to get it right. Printers often produce a slightly darker image than what you see on the camera LCD. It pays to practice a little and get used to the differences between your camera’s display and what comes out of your printer.

More tips for printing photos on inkjet printers can be found in Robin Raskin’s post over at Yahoo! Tech.

In the months ahead, Dell will be releasing some new printers with an exciting new piece of software called the Dell Imaging Toolbox, a program that offers easy one-touch photo editing for those in a hurry as well as detailed editing tools for those who sweat the details. This software also provides some creative and fun options for making the most of your digital photos online. Watch for it on our upcoming printer releases!

Ok, I’ll admit it. T-Shirts have come a LONG way. I went through a good 10-year t-shirt wearing dry spell. Maybe it’s because I have several tee’s in my closet that are destined to follow in the long line of t-shirts to become the next dust rags in our house, but have somehow avoided the scissors; probably for nostalgic reasons. Seriously, who isn’t ready to cut up the quintessential shirts, “Somebody loves you in Toledo” or “I went to Hawaii and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”? Exactly.

Today’s trendy tee’s have moved in a completely different direction. They can be chic, stylish and, yes, socially interactive. Trend Hunter Magazine stumbled across a company out of Washington called edoc laundry that takes the idea of interaction and t-shirts to a whole new level. Each t-shirt has an original design with an embedded message, which can be entered on their Web site to unlock part of the secret behind an online murder mystery, still waiting to be solved. With trendy styles and cuts for men and women combined with an interactive challenge, it’s hard to imagine consumers around the world will not be trying to unlock ‘who dun it?’ in the murder mystery before long.

As for my “Tech-cessory & Accessory” pick of the week, the mysterious nature of these shirts reminded me of Mike Ming’s inspirational designs that are available on our Inspirons. Both are departures from the tradition and standard of their counterparts and both promise to drive social interaction:

Tech-cessory

Inspiron 1525 Mike Ming ‘Bunch O Surfers’ Laptop

Accessory - For Him

Edoc Laundry ‘Warrior’ Men’s T-Shirt

Accessory - For Her

Edoc Laundry ‘Carnivale’ Women’s T-Shirt

Looking forward to your thoughts and comments on this new way to drive social interaction. What would you code or hide in a secret message on a t-shirt if you could?

NPR reported this morning that crude oil prices are hitting prices unimaginable just a few months ago, but the impact on U.S. driving plans for this Memorial Day weekend is projected to be minimal. OK, so we’re still going to hit the highways but, thanks to technology, we don’t have to take a full hit in the wallet.

Prices can vary significantly within a local area. So it makes sense that more and more of us are finding and using Web sites like GasPriceWatch.com, which keeps tabs on prices at about 130,000 gas stations, and GasBuddy.com, which scans pump prices at 170,000 stations. Other sites include MSN Gas Prices and MapQuest Gas Prices.

Michelle Meyers over at Webware has taken a closer look at these Web sites and more.

In the UK, where the cost is well over twice what is paid in the U.S., check out PetrolPrices.com.

BTW, GasBuddy.com has a neat Gas Temperature Map, illustrated below, that displays prices around the U.S. with counties color-coded by their average price for regular unleaded. Click on the image to pull up a larger version of it.

Some of us can remember when a Boom Box was the hip thing to have on the streets when listening to music.  It wasn’t about ear buds and a portable MP3 player.  It was about sharing with (or annoying) others,  with the loud sounds from your favorite tape or radio station.   And it had to be blaring from the biggest box on the block.  It was about listening to Midnight Star and Jam on it Nucleus.  It was about being immersed in the beats and the sound from the streets, so to speak. =)

Well now you can enjoy that experience again, albeit in a much more discreet way tailored for the next generation.  Reebok has released the NXT Speaker Backpack, which will not only allows you to carry your notebook, spare clothes, books and snacks, but you can also carry your portable MP3 player and jack into the backpack’s external speakers.

According to Crave, the backpack is “powered by two AA batteries and will blast tunes from anything that can connect to its 3.5-millimeter jack.” As I’m “Old School,” I can see one glaring problem… the speakers are on the bottom of the backpack and pointed backward when they obviously need to be toward the top to sit on your shoulders.  Reebok are you listening?

After discussing white-collar capers with Your Blog readers sugarbear, jervis961 and Quint in connection with my password post yesterday, I ran across a mashup called SpotCrime. It takes police blotter and news reports in a variety of major U.S. cities – over the time period you designate – and plots incidents like robberies, burglaries and shootings on a Google map.

This is neither Chamber of Commerce fare nor an undertaking that’s anywhere near comprehensive. Nonetheless, it could be useful for checking out neighborhoods for recent criminal activities.  For more details, take a look at Jason Kincaid’s post over at TechCrunch.