While smoking isn’t a very good idea in general, we realize you need to eat and drink, and probably like to do these things while you work.

“Mmm…delicious. Hello snack time, bye bye keyboard!”

We all spend a of time in front of our computers, and as Internet marketers probably more than most (yeah, you’d rather be golfing, but most of the time you’re not, so think this through.)

The main likely and quite possibly catastrophic victim of food and drink if you behave in the normal manner is your keyboard, which is perfectly positioned right under your face and hands, and provides hundreds of convenient places for liquid or little bits of lunch to go and wreak havoc.

Coffee and computers might go “hand in hand” like movies and popcorn, but if you drop a piece of popcorn while watching Steven Segal in “American Asskicker 9” all you’ll get is a crunchy sofa. If you spill coffee in your keyboard, your keyboard is very probably toast, and if you’re like most of us, you don’t have spare keyboards sitting around.

Though actually, you should.

Most serious Web users these days have wireless input devices, that is, mice and keyboards. That’s great but presents a unique problem — other than the cost — if you wreck one with your triple double half-caffeinated latte.

The irony is that in order to load the software to install your new wireless keyboard you will need a working keyboard.

We find that a nice simple solution to this is keep a plan old serial-port keyboard (retail cost in 2006 about $12) sitting around someplace, so that if and when you drench your keyboard in Mountain Dew, coffee, or beer, you won’t be out of luck, since Windows automatically recognizes plain old keyboards.

That way you can plug in your backup while fixing or replacing your drowned QWERTY buddy.

Laptop users are not so fortunate. Laptop keyboards use a membrane system in most cases, which is somewhat “sealed” (though not really sealed) and will be slightly more forgiving of very minor oops moments, but once a laptop keyboard stops working — which usually happens in the form of a single key or two refusing to respond, you have a very annoying and expensive problem on your hands.

I tried typing for a while without an e or r but it just didn’t sm to go all that ight fo m.