Practical jokes with a PC
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
Ah, there are so many... One favorite was a program that pops up a red dialog with the message, "Water detected in Drive C:... Starting spin cycle" which was followed by the sound of a motor spinning up emanating from the internal PC speaker. After about 20 seconds it spun down and added the message, "Water removed from drive C:" to the dialog. Classic. Before PCs I was in an office with networked dumb terminals. Once in a while the system would get bogged down when someone was doing a large build. When that happened I hacked the current system security code, ran some tests to see which terminal session was hogging all the resources, then using inter-terminal messages (which most in the office didn't know existed) locked the offender's keyboard. Then I'd reset the user's priority level to the lowest possible value, set mine to the highest, then unlock his keyboard. As word got out about what I was doing it evolved into what we called 'terminal wars' with several of us senior people battling it out regularly to see who could lock the others out first. The trick, of course, was to immediately change the master security code to something else before anyone could lock my keyboard on me.:-D "Some people are like Slinkies... not really good for anything,
but you still can't help but smile when you see one
tumble down the stairs." -
Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
I remember what Nish did once. A friend of ours was debugging a web based app and kept getting the error page every once in a while. Nish modified the HTML of the error page, changing the text to say something like "enough of the mess... stop running your app on me", with red BG color. She took a couple of seconds to realise what was happening. Smitha You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. -- Richard Bach
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
I've got a couple of tales I've heard from others: 1 - write a program that runs on a schedule and changes someones background wallpaper to something they don't like (if they support a sports team, use the oppositions logo, etc) - even if they change it back, it reappears later... :-) 2 - similar thing, but it plays a burp sound instead. -- A funny ones I've been involved with was with a colleague who is into rave/dance music etc. He was out getting lunch, and his phone kept going off with a reminder. Another colleague had a look, and read the reminder stating "Get Bon Jovi Tickets". This being a particularly amusing thing to us considering we thought he was a raver, we signed him up to the Bon Jovi mailing list, set his wallpaper on some key Explorer folders (some of which wouldn't be seen for a week or two) to have a Bon Jovi wallpaper, and set his homepage to the official web site. I photoshopped a picture of his head onto Bon Jovi himself, and emailed it around the office for everyones amusement. He apparently forwarded this image onto his girlfriend (who the tickets were actually for), and she was quite impressed :-) -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
Not sure if this counts as a practical joke, or just me being mean: My last day on the job, I stayed late, installed a 5 1/4 floppy drive on my 1.6 GHz computer and wiped the hard drive clean, loading it with a fresh copy of DOS 4 and Windows 3.1. To ensure goodness, replaced the generic desktop background with: KEN WUZ HEER, complete w/ backwards R. <---signature---> Your kid gets into Duke. You pay the tuition. That tuition goes into my checking account. My money in my checking account goes into beer, porn, and other such fun. Thank you :)
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Not sure if this counts as a practical joke, or just me being mean: My last day on the job, I stayed late, installed a 5 1/4 floppy drive on my 1.6 GHz computer and wiped the hard drive clean, loading it with a fresh copy of DOS 4 and Windows 3.1. To ensure goodness, replaced the generic desktop background with: KEN WUZ HEER, complete w/ backwards R. <---signature---> Your kid gets into Duke. You pay the tuition. That tuition goes into my checking account. My money in my checking account goes into beer, porn, and other such fun. Thank you :)
HOLY COW! I can't belive you did such a crazy thing!!!! Where did you find a 5 1/4" disk drive? ;) --Mike-- Ericahist | Homepage | RightClick-Encrypt | 1ClickPicGrabber CP SearchBar v2.0.2 released
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HOLY COW! I can't belive you did such a crazy thing!!!! Where did you find a 5 1/4" disk drive? ;) --Mike-- Ericahist | Homepage | RightClick-Encrypt | 1ClickPicGrabber CP SearchBar v2.0.2 released
Michael Dunn wrote: HOLY COW! I can't belive you did such a crazy thing!!!! Where did you find a 5 1/4" disk drive? I sense sarcasm ;P Right next to the 8" drives, of course. <---signature---> Your kid gets into Duke. You pay the tuition. That tuition goes into my checking account. My money in my checking account goes into beer, porn, and other such fun. Thank you :)
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
My tech boss - who like most - thinks he knows things about computers because he did some LISP >15 years ago, always mucks up the app with stupid ideas and wastes our time while we explain it (like that XML parsers automatically know what XML is, so we should use that for our large and very complex backend instead of SQL Server). So, before a meeting I threw together a quick .reg file, copied it to his machine, and ran a remote command I put on his machine to install a "2001: Space Odessy" sound theme I threw together, right before he had to go to a meeting with some clients! Every time a question was asked by some proc, his speakers asked, "What are you doing Dave?". There was other classis soundbytes, too. Of course, there's always the non-stop gut-buster when taking a screenshot of a user's desktop (Alt+Print), making that a background, then hiding the icons and taskbar and watch them attempt to do anything. This only works for the computer-stupid, but there are always plenty of those to go around!
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.21 GCS/G/MU d- s: a- C++++ UL@ P++(+++) L+(--) E--- W+++ N++ o+ K? w++++ O- M(+) V? PS-- PE Y++ PGP++ t++@ 5 X+++ R+@ tv+ b(-)>b++ DI++++ D+ G e++>+++ h---* r+++ y+++ -----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
I downloaded a bunch of fun apps from the site below... I have to pull them out every once and a while... especially when it comes time for training. I setup all the training room PCs (12 of them) with a different one of these prank apps, just to get the training started off right. http://www.rjlsoftware.com/[^] My code isn't buggy. Those are all fleatures.
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HOLY COW! I can't belive you did such a crazy thing!!!! Where did you find a 5 1/4" disk drive? ;) --Mike-- Ericahist | Homepage | RightClick-Encrypt | 1ClickPicGrabber CP SearchBar v2.0.2 released
Michael Dunn wrote: Where did you find a 5 1/4" disk drive? Hey, don't knock it. We have a fileserver with an Athlon XP 2000+, Win2K, 410 GB of HDs, and a 5¼" floppy. One of the honchos insists that the need for it may come up... someday. :rolleyes: -- All your base are belong to us.
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
My favorite was a hardware prank. I don't know how it would work with a modern color monitor, but I used to do this to the old VT-100 terminals. They were easy to get into, just four pop-out rivet plugs and the case was off. The first prank was just grabbing the deflection yoke and rotating it 180 degrees. Really hilarious to watch the reaction when the victim tries to figure out what happened. After a while, this one got around so I upped the ante. I left the yoke as-is, but I was able to carefully fish the horizontal yoke wires out of the plug and swap them. So now the screen is reversed, but still right-side-up. It was really funny because the first thing the victims would do would to start twisting the yoke around, thinking that is was just some rotational trick again. I may have to grab and old monitor and see if this can still be done. Probably totally screw up the convergence, so I don't think I'd want to actually try this as a prank. QRZ? de WAØTTN
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Michael Dunn wrote: Where did you find a 5 1/4" disk drive? Hey, don't knock it. We have a fileserver with an Athlon XP 2000+, Win2K, 410 GB of HDs, and a 5¼" floppy. One of the honchos insists that the need for it may come up... someday. :rolleyes: -- All your base are belong to us.
We just got a RFQ from a US gov agency - they want the final product docs on a 5 1/4" floppy in WordPerfect 5.1!!! Steve
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
i have been known to use a shortcut that reboots the comptuer when its launched. I use it quite often, its pretty handy. whats fun is when i put that same shortcut in someone's startup folder. Or make it the My comptuer Icon on theri desktop. :) *.* cin >> knowledge;
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
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i have been known to use a shortcut that reboots the comptuer when its launched. I use it quite often, its pretty handy. whats fun is when i put that same shortcut in someone's startup folder. Or make it the My comptuer Icon on theri desktop. :) *.* cin >> knowledge;
There used to be one you could do with MS-DOS, where you rebooted the machine from the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If I remember correctly, you could even do it on a standard machine using the DEBUG program and input redirection.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
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Theres a funny thread at slashdot about practical jokes<[^] in the office with PC's, so I'm wondering, what are some funny practical jokes people here have played on co-workers? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
Keep this one in mind Chris: One of our ex-staffers recorded a scream on the secretary's Mac for startup sound, maxed the volume, and waited for her to come to work. We could hear it on the next floor.:rolleyes: "It's been swell.. but the swelling's gone down." - TankGERL