laptop user

Every Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who uses a laptop will one day face the peril of having their coffee, lemonade, margarita or healthy green tea spilled onto their laptop computer. It will never be on purpose and it will be an unpleasant surprise that comes at the worst possible time (Don’t they always?). How you react and how quickly you react may make the difference between life and death for your legal nurse consulting PC. ICU nurses will have an advantage over the rest of us, but today’s Tuesday Tech Tip will help to level the playing field, while still allowing for a successful resuscitation. Legal nurse consultants who are desktop users may only end up with a sticky mouse or sticky keyboard, both easy to replace. If you’ve somehow managed to spill liquid into the case of your desktop computer, well my CLNC^® amigo, you’ve got more problems than just a wet PC. Instead, I’m going to focus on laptop users.

First of all, move quickly. This is important. Don’t worry about extracting an apology or pound of flesh from the spiller. As the spillee, the first thing to do is unplug the flow of power to your laptop. If you’re plugged into the power adaptor, pull that plug immediately (yank hard). Then flip the PC over and pull out all batteries. There’s no time for niceties such as closing programs and saving the data for that legal nurse consulting report you were writing. If you take any time to save your data you may lose your laptop (think short-circuit, sparks, fire, big Hollywood explosion).

As soon as all power sources are disconnected, pull out any removable components, CD/DVD drives, flash cards, USB devices, Internet cards, etc. Now tilt the laptop over to drain out the offending liquid. Tilt it toward you to keep the liquid from running into the screen/display. If you’ve got an open port or slot such as a PCMCIA or lock slot, drain the liquid from that slot. Then while keeping the laptop tilted, wipe off the outside with a soft, dry towel. If you spilled your drink onto the screen, use a screen cleaning solution such as Monster iClean and a microfiber cloth to wipe it off. That was the easy part. Depending upon your drink of choice, you could be in good or bad shape. The next steps depend on what was spilled onto your laptop, how much was spilled and how deeply it penetrated.

If you’re a legal nurse consultant who drinks unsweetened drinks such as healthy green tea or water, you’re in better shape than the rest. If your cup contained sugar, lemon, high fructose corn syrup, cream or other organics, you’re in for a tougher time. Your next step if you dare, is to take the case off your laptop and lift the keyboard up to view the circuit board. If you don’t dare, you may still be okay, depending on what was spilled. Put away the hair dryer and can of compressed air – they won’t help right now and can only cause more damage at this point. Instead, prop the keyboard up so air can circulate around it. In the unlikely event it was simply water or green tea without any sort of sugar or organics you can just put the system in a warm, dry room preferably in the sun and let it dry for a couple of days (consider having to go without a laptop as punishment for letting liquids get near it).

Finally, after it’s had a chance to dry, reassemble it and turn it back on. If the CLNC^® gods and goddesses are smiling it should work just fine. While you’re waiting, you can consider contacting the insurance company that covers your legal nurse consulting hardware or the computer’s manufacturer (or even American Express if it is a covered purchase under their replacement plan) to see if it’s covered by insurance or warranty. You may wish to do this before you disassemble it but this is one of those cases where I believe it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.

In the more likely event that you spilled your super-mocha-double-whipped cream latte, Jolt Power Cola or frozen margarita (woo-hoo!), we’ve got some more steps to take. While your computer is disassembled and drying, go to your local RadioShack^® and buy a can or bottle of electronic circuit cleaning solution or circuit board cleaner. You may first want to spray some of this on a soft cloth and run it over some part of your laptop’s plastic case that isn’t visible to see if it causes discoloration (they often do). Then take your laptop outdoors (if it’s dry weather) or into a well-ventilated area, tilt it and flush it out with the electronic cleaning solution. This should dissolve the organics and wash them out. Then put the laptop back in the warm dry space and let it dry for a couple of days before you try turning it back on.

If it still doesn’t work, you can take it to a local computer repair shop and have them try and save the hard drive (they’re sealed), thus saving the data on that drive. They can load your data into a new computer or try and wash out the old laptop like you did, but with the skills necessary to further disassemble it. In the end, it may be necessary to destroy the computer to save it (well, at least the data).

In the meantime, always, and I do mean always, whether you’re working on a legal nurse consulting project or just living la vida loca as a CLNC^® consultant in your Second Life^®, keep liquids an arm’s length away from your electronics. You may be able to postpone the inevitable as long as possible, but like death and taxes, a spill is going to happen. Whether you react like an ICU nurse or an office nurse will make all the difference in the world.

Keep on techin’ (dryly),

Tom

Okay, I’ve got to admit something. You’ve heard me brag about my dual 20″ monitors on my desk. Here’s the confession. I’ve gotten to the point where I cannot work without two monitors staring me in the face. In my office, I keep my email open on one monitor (the right) so I can do the ADD thing as soon as something important that requires me to drop what I’m doing and immediately attend to someone else’s problem, drops into my email box. I do turn off the sound so the pinging doesn’t drive me totally bonkers.

The left (really center) monitor is my workspace. This is where I do the important things (write my Tuesday Tech Tips, surf the Internet and occasionally some real work). I’m constantly mousing back and forth between the two monitors. If I’m editing documents, I’ll keep one document open on one monitor and drag another to the other. I even accidentally discovered that in Outlook you can right click the calendar or email icons at the bottom left and open either in a new window! That way when I’m putting a deadline from an email into my calendar or preparing another list of my availability dates to send to President Obama, I don’t have to depend on my bad memory, I just look back and forth.

Legal nurse consultants, if you haven’t tried duals you’re missing out. These are even more fun than using tabbed browsing in Firefox to look at multiple websites. The possibilities are endless. I haven’t tried spreading a spreadsheet across the two… maybe later. Think about working on your reports for your attorney-clients. You can have the scanned medical records on one screen and your report on the other while doing research in the background.

“Tom,” you might be wondering, “you’re a lowly laptop user – how did you plug two monitors into a laptop?” Well the answer is simple. I’ve got my dock, and my dock has two different outputs on the back for monitors – a standard VGA output (old school) for the monitor I put on top of the dock’s built-in stand and a DVI output (modern). Probably the designers figured people would have one type of monitor input (VGA or DVI) so they were building-in choice. By buying a second monitor with the DVI output, I was able to plug in a second monitor!

Newer docks are already on the DVI bandwagon and often come with two DVI outputs as well as the one good old VGA output. Check carefully before you buy. After you get your dock, you simply match your monitors to the output and away you go!

If you don’t yet own a dock (or port-replicator in geek-speak) you can still run duals on your laptop. You simply plug a second monitor into your laptop’s output (VGA or DVI) then boot up the laptop keeping the screen open. Once it’s booted, right-click anywhere on the screen (desktop in geek-speak). Click Properties, click Settings and tell it to Extend my Windows Desktop onto this monitor or specify both monitors as Attached depending upon what you see. If you plug a keyboard and mouse into the laptop, you don’t have to keep it up close and can even mount it on a laptop stand to raise the screen to eye level.

Now it gets cool. You can drag the monitor icons on the Settings screen left or right. This allows you to place your second screen to the left or right of your main and then roll your mouse off the left or right (depending upon where you place your monitor) of your screen and right onto the second monitor. Your cursor can fly through the thin air between two monitors!

Desktop owners, don’t start crying in your beer (or Perrier) yet. You may be able to do the same trick since most newer desktop computers support dual monitors right out of the box. You could be ready and not even know it. Look on the back of your computer (don’t sneeze from the dust). If you can find more than one VGA or DVI outputs on the video card that sticks out from the back of your computer, then you’re ready to go. Buy a second monitor with inputs that match your free output, plug it in and follow the steps above to activate it.

If you only have one output (VGA or DVI) you can haul your computer to the local geek store and they can drop in a second video card or replace your current one with a card that has dual monitor support for under $100. If you really want to create monitor envy in your friends, instead of replacing your old single card – add the second dual port card. Then, if you have the wall space, you can have three monitors! You’ll triple your work output.

There is one other option for the spacially challenged. At home, I don’t have the desk space for duals, instead I had to compromise and install just one freakin’ huge 26″ wide-screen monitor. YEAH, BABY! It’s like sitting in the first row of a movie theater and I love it. It’s big enough that I can open two slightly narrower versions of the dual windows I use at work without feeling (too) compromised by the smaller space and it keeps me from getting claustrophobic. If you don’t have enough desk space for duals, take my advice and do the next best thing, “Go wide, young CLNC^® consultant!”

Time to tech-out here, so think about the duals. I’ve got to warn you – they’re addictive. Now, when I’m on a plane, train or automobile and I’m working from my laptop’s single (but wide) screen I can just about scream from frustration when I can’t work in the dual manner and style to which I have become accustomed.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

P.S. Comment and share your experiences with dual or more! monitors.