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(Continued from page 7) made with much more (micro) surface area to be
more absorbent.
perience much quicker buildup of dust, smoke, hair
and other dirt. Another common item will do - kitty litter. Because
most kitty litter formulas have activated charcoal in
Wipe Down the them to neutralize litter box smells, it’s a great odor
Outside eliminator.
Remember, when Seal the laptop up in a bag or closable bin with a cup
cleaning a laptop or so of the activated charcoal or litter and leave it for
(or desktop) com- at least 24 to 48 hours. If you don’t have a cat, peo-
puter, you want to ple also had good luck with diaper pail deodorizers,
apply the cleaning which are neat little packets of charcoal you can
product to the tool throw away when you’re done. The longer you leave
you’re using to the computer in the bin, the better.
clean, never ever directly onto the computer. So,
grab your microfiber cloth, pour a little alcohol onto
it, wring it out so it isn’t dripping wet, and wipe down Tech Talk: Q&A
the surface. Cotton swabs with alcohol are useful
for the keyboard keys and the small spaces be-
tween them. (If there are marks that won’t come off, By Jasmine Blue D’katz
you can try rubbing them with a Mr. Clean Magic Q: I have several USB-C cables. One came with my An-
Eraser or other cleaner very lightly, but again, droid phone, another with my digital camera, and I pur-
they’re mildly abrasive and this can alter the finish chased a spare. Sometimes they work, sometimes they
of the surface.)
It may take a few passes to get all that grime off, but don not. Is there a reliable way to test a cable?
once you do, you should notice a dramatic differ-
ence. If your laptop is particularly old, you may not
be able to get rid of the shine on the keys; some of
us may have worn down the top layer of plastic and
even the letters on the keys. There’s not much you
can do about that.

You should be able to wipe fingerprints off your A: USB-C cables have a design flaw that will probably
screen with a dry microfiber cloth. If you need some cause a lot of people to assume a cable is broken
more cleaning power, a slightly damp cloth that has
been completely wrung out first, can help. Some Up until now in the tech world each cable had a different
manufacturers, including Dell and Lenovo, even say connector. For decades, cable was easily identified with a
you can use a 50:50 mixture of isopropyl alcohol casual glance. Different tasks required different cables,
and water, if need be, to remove really tough dirt. and it was possible to tell which cable was required by the
Just avoid household cleaners with harsher chemi- shape of the device port. USB-C changes all that.
cals like ammonia or Windex on the screen.
All sic variations of USB-C cables use the same connect-
Get Rid of Bad ors. Each connector should be embossed with an icon
Smells describing the cable but that is not always the case. The
Let’s say you have a icons themselves are not especially descriptive, and worst
particularly terrible still device ports are even not marked at all.
case of gross laptop,
and even after the Users can Google search for a USB-C icon charge to help
above steps, your identify a cable’s capability. But that is a lot to ask. My
laptop still carries the only other advice is using the cable with the device it
essence of whatever came with despite the fact they may look interchangeable.
it has been exposed to. I’ve seen many laptops that
smelled like smoke and getting rid of that is a chal- Because USB-C cables contain a microchip there is a pro-
lenge or maybe impossible. Cleaning the surface vision that would allow a device to present an error if you
can help, but a lot of those smells may also be in- plug in a mismatched cable. That is very poorly supported
side the computer. For that, you can turn to a natu- right now, but if give a bit of hope for the future.
ral deodorizer: charcoal. Don’t to go digging through
your grill for briquettes – cooking charcoal is differ- (Continued on page 11)
ent from activated charcoal. Activated charcoal is

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