Sure, you can clean your phone, desk, keyboard and mouse with disinfectant once in a while (don't spray anything directly on the keyboard -- use wipes), but you're likely to forget, and most disinfectant products are mildly toxic anyway. You can also buy special condoms for your cell phone, but people will talk.

A better approach is to take advantage of a new and growing mini-industry of antimicrobial phones, keyboards and mice. Most of these new gadgets are coated with material that includes modified silver, which you'll see described as "nano sliver" or "silver ion."

(One company called Unotron bucks the antimicrobial coating trend by simply making their keyboards and mice washable.)

Silver has been known for millennia for its antiseptic action. The Romans used silver to keep water and food from spoiling. Today, the water tanks of ships, airplanes and spacecraft are often coated with silver to keep the water potable for months.

(Note that the use of "colloidal silver," taken internally as an "alternative medicine" and claimed by proponents as a cure for diseases like AIDS, can be dangerous, leading to argyria, or silver poisoning, and other illnesses.)