Faded/worn keys, replacement keyboard labels, stickers, overlays

Uh, I wouldn't put that on my XPS if I were paid to do so. Have you looked for keyboard replacements via Google? I'm sure that there are a few cheaper sellers.

That's going to be a downright MESS!
First of all, the different sized keys are not standard. You'll have stickers that are too small, and some that will need to be trimmed.

-And they're STICKERS, dude!
YUCK! How long do you think they'll last?

Buy the new keyboard. Install it. Ten take the old one and try an experiment...

Spray paint about ten very, very light coats of clear coat over the board. See what you get. If it makes a nice protective coating, then yank out the new board and do that one.

My two sense.

my laptop keyboard is over 2 years old and well....the keys are good. my desktop keyboard is also about as old as my laptop keyboard...no fade either. might i suggest washing your hands / trimming your nails so that you don't apply any substances that can potentially dissolve the paint / scratch the lettering off.

kitty is right....stickers will be a huge mess. i bet they are made for "standard" desktop keyboards too...on your laptop it will be a super huge mess.

I've never encountered any kind of problem with keyboard labels fading even on old keyboards with heavy use and abuse. I have to agree that the sticker method doesn't seem ideal. But if it's just those two keys, why do you need to label them? I doubt you will ever lose track of the location of the a or e key, especially when everything else is fine, and you won't be looking at the keys if your fingers are on them anyway. If you can bear with that until at least half of your keys are scraped away, then you can get at least 6-8 years out of your keyboard before replacing it.

If it really bothers you, go buy some stencils and spray paint or acrylic markers and write in the two letters. Easy, clean, fast.

abf wasn't questioning your personal hygene, Mark. Unless you live in a hermetically sealed bubble, you have abrasive dust trapped in your finger prints. Probably 80-85% of the US labor force, no matter how hygenic, encounter grit at their job. You don't, and your keyboard still is wearing out.
He also brings up a great point; -If your job consists of using your keyboard all day, then why do you even need the keys labled?

Anyway, you seem convinced that stickers are "the way to go". So order them. Post a photo if they really work well.

Mark, you asked for advice in your first post and people are responding. As they give their opinions - which don't seem to coincide with your own - you're taking offense. They're trying to help, not gang up on you. FYI and FWIW, I've very often disagreed with abf (who is male), but in this situation, don't believe he was trying to hassle or insult you.

If you're set on applying stickers to your keyboard, do so - it's your machine. Good luck.

are there any other defects with the keyboard? anything as minor as a sticking key, or an occasional non functional key will warrant replacement under warranty. I know this only buys you another year, however it's better than paying for a replacement.

Now, before this gets to a hygiene discussion again, abf touched on something important, I have a T42 as my work laptop, standard issue at IBM, my keys are perfect. The keys on my Dell d600 and my AW M51 are also perfect, no shine or fading. My co-worker has had his T42 for the same amount of time and his keys are gone, why? He has just a little bit more oil on his finger tips than I do, this is a naturally occurring thing, it's just human biology.

I'm not sure which Vaio you have, however you should maybe look into a key skin as well.

http://www.compucover.com/new_index....=KeySkinSearch

Very sorry about that, just hit the main site: http://www.compucover.com/ They are but one example, I believe there are several vendors for this type of product.

I tried one of those sheets once, and they suck lemmie tell you. 3 different sheets all produced ugly looking keys, none of which fit perfectly on the keys. It was very very hard to get the stickers aligned and trimmed perfectly to make it as nice as possible. But from afar you can definately tell that they were milimiters crooked and fake. Plus, constant typing on them made them come off in less than a month. So there, real world experience 3 different times. If u want to have a rather ugly looking keyboard (as I doubt ur gonna get all 106 keys perfectly trimmed and perfectly aligned) then go ahead and get it. But id rather pay 100 bux for a new keyboard and do that every 2 years rather than go through all this process every month. Lemmie tell u its no fun sittng over a keyboard trying to place tiny stickers perfectly on each key. And cuttin them to fit nicely is also hard. Mess up once, and there goes the sheet. BTW, ive seen hundreds of old p3 computers at universities i went to, and worked at 4 different offices in new york city the past 4 summers each with hundreds of employees and desks/computers. I must say that I saw 1, maybe 2 keyboards completely missing keys due to fading, so maybe your experience is obviously limited. PS, you seem to be a firm believer in aesthetics, meaning your gonna hate ur keyboard if you make even teh smallest mistake in placing the tiny stickers on 106 different keys. odds are ur gonna screw up once, so eitehr ur gonna have an ugly keyboard or have to fork more money to try once again on a new sheet. gl

Edit: Post deleted after Yang's thread cleanup.

You can very easily go back to the original skin, there is a link on the top of the page on the new skin. And when you say "increasingly irritating" are you referring to the content? Or the posters? I think if you had a lot of responses to your post, folks tried to be helpful, albeit not the answer you were looking for. Help us help you, we love feedback!

lets keep things civil please

please act accordingly...

thanks!