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You can actually do most of that with a vacuum cleaner, rather than pay for compressed air...

Any ideas for how to get beagle hair out from underneath the keyboard of a MacBook Pro?

You could if you don't mind risking frying components with static electricity (like the article says). Not advisable.

As Roman pointed out, using a vacuum creates static electricity. Even a little bit of static can fry your computer. Do not use a vacuum.

There are tiny little hand-held vacuums specifically for cleaning out computers. Anything else is dangerous.

How do you uncover an iMac 24" ? I saw some screws on the base on the screen. Are they the key? There seemed to be no other obvious entry points.

You also don't want to tilt the can of compressed air like you were doing in the video. That makes condensation come out of the can as well, which you can see very well in the parts where you blasted the ram and cpu. Moisture is not good for a computer either.

Alan, I'm not so sure that dust is a problem with the iMac. Doing a little research online, I've found IT folks who say that if you keep your computer on your desktop, dust isn't as much as a problem. Computers kept on the floor (like I did with my Power Mac) gather the most dust. (And I didn't mention it in the video, but I used to have a cat who loved to nestle up to my Mac. Cat hair in the fan. Ugh.)

Dust in an iMac probably isn't a concern, but if anyone else reading this can chime in, please do. As for removing the back panel, it's possible that doing so would void your warranty, but I haven't read the iMac warranty in a while.

Thanks rloyola,

You saved me a lot of work.

I suspect that with the air inlet for the iMac on the bottom, the dust which normally wants to travel down, would have to travel uphill which would discourage a lot of it from doing so. I assume the same to be true of laptops. My girlfriend keeps hers on
the desk and is very careful about packing it up when she occasionally
travels.

On the aircraft I used to fly (Beechcraft KingAir 350) the engine is a Pratt and Whitney PT6. The engine is a reverse flow, in other words the air comes in the engine cowling (cover) travelling back, then it makes a 180 degree turn at the back of the engine and travels forward through the engine, then after it is burned it exits out the front of the engine. This has a tendency to prevent anything solid, such as ice, water etc from being ingested and damaging the turbine blades and or flaming it out because 350 mph of inertia keeps it from making the 180 degree turn. if we fly through visible moisture at +5 degrees C or less we are to open up a futher protection via a more elaborate inertial separator. This accounts for it's reliability and long life between overhauls.

You are no doubt right about the warranty.

Great advnice I had dust build up on my video card in Mac Pro, so I bought a can of Dust Destroyer, blew away the dust which in turn got rid of the annoying humming sound. That noise was driving me crazy and keeping me from working at times.
I learned of the problem from this article: http://macsaregreat.com/?p=63
I do think a special computer vacuum cleaner would be better, though.

I have an iMac G5 iSight and an iMac G4 17". I have never opened the iMac G5 iSight because it requires popping off the front panel and removing the LCD to access the motherboard. Only the 1st and 2nd gen iMac G5 has the easy to open back panel to access everything. Removing the back panel on the 1st and 2nd gen iMac G5 does not void your warranty, in fact, Apple made many replacement service parts available to the public for customer installation. The iSight model and Aluminum iMac will probably have a voided warranty since removing the front panel and LCD is not intended for the customer.
The iMac G4 17" has been opened for upgrades (added RAM, big hard drive, and Bluetooth), but it is not as easy as dropping down a side door on a tower. Even on a desk, the iMac G4 will draw in a lot of dust. The cooling fan is at the top with the air vents, but there are also air vents around the bottom of the base. Dust is drawn into these vents from the cooling fan pulling air through the computer. When I opened up a 3 year old iMac G4, it was very dusty inside. Disconnecting all the cables allows you to remove the bottom piece which contains the motherboard. Easy for taking outside to use a can of air to blow out all the dust. Accessing the fan for cleaning requires you to remove the drive cage containing the hard drive and optical drive. Easy to do, but also a tight fit going back in. Putting it all back together requires cleaning off the old Thermal Paste from the heatpipe and reapplying new paste to avoid the CPU from overheating. Easy for a person with experience working with computers, but not so easy for someone without any experience.
I have always cleaned the fans with the can of air. Short quick bursts will blow out the air and the fan has never spun faster than it normally does when on. If you get the dust wet with alcohol, it will stick to everything.
Great article and video, because no one thinks to clean in the inside of a Mac. I have two cats that love to mark my iMac G5 as their own...who knows what it looks like inside!

Good point. You could see this problem in the video.

I think Macworld should do an article on vacuum cleaners for computer cleaning. Cans of dust can get expensive over time, and I've heard that they are not environmentally sound.