With winter approaching in the Northern hemisphere, the sniffly, lime green drippy embrace of cold and flu season is quickly approaching. Keyboards and mice are a haven for bacteria and germs, so now is an excellent time to talk about hygiene, and how what you are doing right now is probably going to get you the sniffles. If you’re an enthusiast or work in an office environment, you probably make things worse by eating at your computer… As you can imagine with all the gunk stuck to those QWERTY keys, it’s only a matter of time before someone catches a cold and passes it on via a computer keyboard, mouse or a phone handset.

Luckily there are steps you can take to prevent the spread of germs.

First and foremost clean your keyboard and mouse with one of the following; a damp soapy sponge (not soaking wet, that may damage the keyboard), mild window cleaner containing ammonia & a soft cloth, or an anti-bacterial wipe. That will do an excellent job at removing the dirt and germs stuck to plastic surfaces like buttons and keys. If there’s a lot of grime, use a soft nylon brush and a can of compressed air to help remove the debris between keys. If your desktop keyboard is really dirty, use a vacuum to get at all that stuff under the keys. Once the keyboard and mouse have been given a good cleaning, carefully go over all surfaces with another clean dry cloth. While you’re at it, give your phone handset a wipe-down too.

This will take less than 3 minutes to do, but if you follow these suggestions once or twice a winter season, it can go along way to preventing colds and the flu – especially in the office.

After prolonged periods in front of the computer screen do you ever get a headaches or find yourself suffering from eye strain? Most of the time this problem occurs with CRT monitors that are set to a low refresh rate. LCD displays generally aren’t affected, because they operate differently. If you’re using a CRT monitor and get headaches from the screen, there is a rather easy fix that 9 times out of 10, solves the problem.

In WinXP click on the “Windows/Start” button, go to “Settings” and then “Control Panel” and click on “Display“. From there click the “Settings” tab and then the “Advanced” button. Go to the “Adapter” tab and you should see the “Monitor Settings“. Under that should be a number followed by the “Hertz“. The sweet spot is 75 Hz or above. In general you want to get that number as high as possible. In Windows Vista, right click on the desktop, select “Personalize” then “Display Settings“. Choose “Advanced Settings” > Monitor, and adjust the screen refresh rate accordingly.

When you press the “Apply” or “OK” button the CRT monitor will blink for a moment and then you’ll be all set!

Now you can stay in front of your computer for long periods of time without the problems caused by a CRT screen that flickers at a low 60Hz.