Geeky Practical Jokes

[john]

@ Steve, love the hamster one, but would only really work on PCs that have windows in them so they see the poor hamster lying "dead" in the bottom of the pc

[Halfmad]

I've done the old "screenshot of desktop and hide icons" malarky on a poor chap I use to work with.

In addition I had his autoexec calling a batch file that was hidden well within the windows sub directories and call something rather important.

This batch file:

1. Added a shortcut to his desktop upon each bootup entitled "My porn" and with a internet explorer icon.

2. ran a registry key that set the screensaver to scrolling marque and the text set to "I love working here, almost as much as I love toothache."

3. added in porn links to his IE favourites.


He never did find out how to fix it as he was always terrified of editing the autoexec and config.sys files. What was really amusing was that he would do a file search to try and find the IE and desktop shortcuts but these were actually stored as different names and renamed after being copied.

Even if he'd managed it, we'd have put them back seeing as we'd shared out his C Drive as well

Oddly enough the symptoms came back even after reinstalling windows, just as soon as he'd connected it to the network..

[Pottsey]

The hamster one is great. Very tempted to try that at work. Stick my PC under the desk and then put a fake PC case with window and a hamster back on the desk where my PC was. Wonder how many people comment or notice. Would be great at a LAN as well. If you get to much time on your hands get a small hidden motor to turn the wheel.

[CHR1S]

The hamster one is great. Very tempted to try that at work. Stick my PC under the desk and then put a fake PC case with window and a hamster back on the desk where my PC was. Wonder how many people comment or notice. Would be great at a LAN as well. If you get to much time on your hands get a small hidden motor to turn the wheel.

You could just knock one up in photoshop and stick it to the side, saves alot of hassle

Ive used a few of these on my last day at my old place to great effect, ahh good times

[phreak]

If you have desks that are facing each other you can always swop the mouse/keyboard connections. That is always good for a laugh when people see the mouse moving on it's own. The blue screen of death boot screen and screensaver is an old favorite of mine. If you use some sort of e-mail client like Firstclass you can edit peoples profiles on there to say something like "I like gay cock" and put a rude or silly pictures on other peoples profiles.

Also, this one is not so much a techy practical joke as a easy laugh. If you take 2 plastic cups (not the syrofoam ones or paper ones) and sneak up behind someone while holding the cups just next to their ears. Then crush them. Watch the person jump. It used to be a common joke to do in the workshop I used to work in.

[DreddMetal]

ah the good ol' BSOD screensaver, had this set as my screensaver for a while, took it off in the end as whilst i was out at a school my colleague saw it and powered down my machine because he thought it was busted! good job i saved all me work ey?

advancing on the hamster case idea, doing like Pottsey said, keep your machine out of sight and then setup the sawdust case but instead of any ol' stuffed toy hamster wire up this little guy to your real machine and place him in the joke case

[gwendes]

LOVE the cress one!

I set the screensaver to an image of a crack LCD and got a good gasp!

The best was ongoing for about a week... my old supervisor was a bit 'mean' so I ran a USB extension under the pod of desks, from his computer, to a mouse within foot range of about 4 fellow disgruntled employees...

Best. Week. Ever.

Moving it round, clicking on things... yet noone ever saw it when his computer was playing up...

Evil

[enjay]

I do like the cress one - alphabetising the keyboard is good for a giggle too.

[limbo]

I heard a story that when the current administration moved into the Whitehouse the previous occupants had removed all the "w" keys from the keyboards in honour of the new boss!

[theeldergeek]

Using your position as an ICT Technician. What kind of geeky practical jokes have you played on people?

One I've done, is to put a very small piece of sellotape over the 'eye' of an optical mouse, and then colour it in with a black marker pen! If you get the sellotape just right, the user doesn't see it when glancing underneath the mouse.... quite amusing watching them swop USB slots and tapping the mouse on the mouse pad to try and get it working.

[gwendes]

...and we wonder why lusers are so untrusting

[openhgs]

If people are gaming, I like to VNC their session and "help" them. It's best when they are on the verge of achieving a high score and you move their ship into the path of an oncoming missile.

Back in the dumb terminal days, you could join someone elses screen to yours and drop random characters into their work. They would be typing say "PRINT A3$" but it would appear as "PRIZNT A3$". I've had hardened professionals walk away from their VDU muttering "I can't type at all today".

My own personal favourite was when my boss was working away on his PC and for reasons that I can't remember now he didn't have the lid on his box. I was talking to him about one of the clients and he suddently started swearing "bloody windows 95 has crashed again!", as I handed him the 486DX from inside his box. :-)

[gwendes]

My own personal favourite was when my boss was working away on his PC and for reasons that I can't remember now he didn't have the lid on his box. I was talking to him about one of the clients and he suddently started swearing "bloody windows 95 has crashed again!", as I handed him the 486DX from inside his box. :-)

You removed the CPU from your boss's computer? While he was working on it? Are you mad?

I mean. You removed the CPU from someone's computer... while they were working on it... while you were talking to them?

That's crazy.

[Pottsey]

There are a few nice programs around if you know where to look. One make the mouse drunk the faster it goes the more it wobbles. My other favourite is the CD drive randomly ejects and you hear a burp sound from the computer then the CD drive shuts .

[chrisa]

You mean these:

http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment/

also the cress keyboard:

http://www.nada.kth.se/~hjorth/krasse/english.html