Your best computer prank

**acs4isu** · 02-20-2008, 03:30 PM

Back in the day I was a network administrator and had a program that would send a message of the day when people logged in. On April Fool's Day, The message read:

INTERNAL SECURITY VIOLATION! NOW DELETING DRIVE C: that was followed by ... with the dots going on.

All it took to remove it was to hit the return key as with normal MOTD's, but people freaked out when they saw the message. I had it set to end before the boss came to work, but he picked THAT day to show up early. Needless to say, I got a phone call. Kept my job though, and he thought it was hilarious but I should never ever do it again.

**cyclonemaniac7** · 02-20-2008, 03:34 PM

I had a friend who pulled a good one on his roommate in college. His roommate just got a nice computer (this was 7 years ago) with a nice new monitor. Some of his friends found a monitor exactly like his for really cheap and an old keyboard. While he was gone, then took his computer and monitor out of his room, then brought in the old monitor and keyboard and smashed the crap out of them. He freaked out when he returned. They brought his computer and monitor back shortly after that.

**cyclonemaniac7** · 02-20-2008, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by Cybadboy

I worked for a company in Ames and we had duel monitors. I switched a coworkers monitors around so when he tried to navigate from one monitor to the other, the mouse would stop in the middle. He came to work 2 hours earlier than me and was still working on it with IT when I got there. He then hid my chair as a retaliation.

You can change the settings so that when working with dual monitors, you can change where the mouse could cross over from screen to screen, i.e. bottom right or top right corner only. (Right-click on desktop, properties, settings tab, advanced, click on screens to move them up or down.)

**cyfan964** · 02-20-2008, 03:48 PM

No one has tried the mouse in a jello mold?!?!?!

**CYdTracked** · 02-20-2008, 03:50 PM

I don't know what it was called but back in college some guys emailed an attachment that was bound to a picture file that silently installed some remote software so they could basically control this kid's computer. They started messing with him by writing things in instant messenger which really frustrated him because you can imagine what some college kids might type.

It gets better though, they later start fooling with him thinking some girl was stalking him. They sent him an IM and they started acting like a girl that lived in the building and had seen him around, even sent him a believable picture. Then they would do things like say she say him on the bus that day wearing a red coat and just little things that we all knew that a casual observer would notice in passing by. Then they took it to the next step and had an actual female call and talk to him. So by now he thinks this hot girl is stalking him and wants to meet him. So she sets up a time to stop by and meet him which just happens to be right after our floor meeting. While we are having our meeting his phone rings so he goes into his room and the guys pulling the prank all let everyone in on what has been going on. He comes out red faced and was a mix of angry and somewhat embarassed but knows that we got him good. The whole floor was laughing. So then a minute later the girl that they had call him comes down and give him a hug an a peck on the cheek in apology for being part of the prank. I think that knocked the kid down a peg after that as he thought he was God's gift to women sometimes.

**Cybadboy** · 02-20-2008, 03:52 PM

Originally Posted by cyclonemaniac7

You can change the settings so that when working with dual monitors, you can change where the mouse could cross over from screen to screen, i.e. bottom right or top right corner only. (Right-click on desktop, properties, settings tab, advanced, click on screens to move them up or down.)

It was more for show...there was an older lady that loved it when I played tricks on this guy. It made her day when I did it.

**cyfan964** · 02-20-2008, 03:52 PM

Also at my place of employment (very laid back) we like to send other co-workers strange messages whenever anyone stays logged on to their computer and leaves their desk. I recently sent our secretary a message from my buddies computer with a picture of a monkey attached. I then asked her, "have you ever seen a monkey like THIS before?" Really, really lame, but it is good clean fun.

**jumbopackage** · 02-20-2008, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by scottie33

When I was out in maryland we had a couple "old-timers" as superintendents that didn't know computers very well. I pulled 3 pranks on them throughout a couple of weeks.

1) we had little sticky dots, and everyone around the office had teh optical mouse. I would put a sticker on teh bottom of their computer mouse, and they couldn't figure out what had happened to their mouse.

2) I did a print screen command of their desktop, and saved teh file. I then opened up paint and set that picture as desktop background. I then went to their background and moved all the icons to a seperate folder. I even set the bottom taskbar to pop-up taskbar if you move the mouse to hte bottom of the screen. They always came to me asking home come excel or prolog wouldn't open up even though they clicked on the icon. It was hard not to laugh when they were askign me question

3) We took one of their keyboards and popped all the keys off and switched them around. He came to me one day saying "when i hit R it gives me a Q, and when I hit N it gives me an R." He was a person who had to be looking down at the keys to see what they said to type what he wanted to, so by switching all the letters around he didn't know waht to do!!!

Isn't it sort of no fun when you have to go deal with the pranks you've done?

We used to flip people's screens upside down with auto-rotate, and then make the mouse left handed. It took forever for people to figure that one out.

Most of the usual gags...tape on optical mice, stealing mouse balls on mechanical ones, changing the keyboard layout to Dvorak, making the wallpaper look like the desktop, etc. etc.

**CyclonesRule** · 02-20-2008, 04:23 PM

I've done the screen shot of their desktop and saved is as their wall paper before. I've swithched peoples letters on their keyboard. I switched their display screen so everything was upside down. The one thing that took the longest for the person to figure out was I switched the persons keyboard and mouse around. They were still connected but they were in each others spots. This was back when they were both had thier specific port.

**TykeClone** · 02-20-2008, 04:37 PM

The Etherkiller

Don't do this at home

**ColoradoClone** · 02-20-2008, 04:39 PM

When a co-worker was out of town and left his cabinet keys out, we locked his mouse, keyboard, and telephone in the overhead cabinet of his cubical and then took the panel off the side of his computer and threw the key in there. When he got in, we started calling him repeatedly.

Another time, we threw some bananas, an apple, and orange into the computer and closed the case. They sat in there for quite a while until we talked the guy into calling IT to upgrade his video card. He was sitting there watching as IT opened his machine, and said "well, maybe getting this fruit out of here will help the performance a little too".

**whirlybirds** · 02-20-2008, 04:42 PM

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_nsyHakslg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_nsyHakslg[/ame]

this is a good prank. i used to do this on my high schools computers all the time.

**psycln11** · 02-20-2008, 04:53 PM

Back in the Project Vincent days at ISU (email)....

We were trying to guess what my roommate used as a password. Since we know it had to be something he would remember, we decided to try his dog's name...BINGO (no that was not his dog's name).

The next day while on campus, I changed his password on him. When he tried to log in that night from our apartment (dial-up with a 32.2 modem), he couldn't log on and was cussing up a storm. My roommates and I were busting up laughing in our rooms. The next day I changed it back and he could log on. I'd continue to change it back and forth for a day or two just to tick him off until we finally told him a few months later.

**scottie33** · 02-20-2008, 04:59 PM

Has anyone done the putting quarters or nickels in the office phone and then take them all out one day and have him/her whack herself in the face witht he phone since it is considerably lighter?

**SeattleClone** · 02-20-2008, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by scottie33

Has anyone done the putting quarters or nickels in the office phone and then take them all out one day and have him/her whack herself in the face witht he phone since it is considerably lighter?

That is by far the funniest Office prank I have seen.

I also just discovered the "auto rotate" feature myself today. Turning it upside down is the funniest, but turning it just 90 degrees to the left was VERY hard to change back, because the mouse still moves correctly relative to the screen.