Your keyboard is gross
Since it is not just flu season but swine flu, er I mean H1N1 season, thought I’d remind everyone that keyboards have often tested heavier in bacterial contamination than toilet seats.
I bring this up not to bring you down, but to encourage you to keep a pack of disinfectanl wipes handy and use them to wipe down your keyboard periodically. Always make sure your machine is off first, and don’t press too hard or rub hard on the keys if you plan on reading them later. If you’re not squeamish you can read about one of the studies here.
The wipes work great for germs and unsightly guk on keys, but an official keyboard cleaning entails first dislodging crumbs and stuff and vacuuming or blowing all debris away, then thoroughly cleaning keys and keyboard surface. Debris removal is important because the crumbs from lunch become a feast for bacteria. I have known computer shops to run a load of keyboards through a dishwasher cycle and it worked great, but you have to know your keyboards.
If a clean keyboard becomes a priority for you, you can find purpose-built keyboards. Some are built to be waterproof, making cleaning easy. Another method is to kill germs with UV light (See Vioguard at techgadgets here), and the most controversial is the nanosilver surface technology said to kill 99% of 650 bacteria within 24 hours. (See Samsung’s Nanosilver laptop for example.)
I’m going out at lunch to get some cleaner wipe-thingys! YUCK!