Comments on: Office Pranks http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/ Utterly random, incoherent and disjointed rants and ramblings... Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:26:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: Aquila http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10361 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:04:35 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10361 I had a boss once that was quite the Nazi, so I guess what we did was more like revenge than prank. We changed his desktop wallpaper in RegEdit with a picture of a guy called Hermann Göring in uniform. Hearing him screaming about this like a...well...Nazi brought tears to our eyes, especially when he replaced the picture, but for "some reason" the picture was back the next day. I don't think he was a happy man, those types usually aren't, but taking it out on the rest of us was not fair, so I guess he deserved it. Anyway, thanks Luke, I always enjoy reading your stuff, especially when you go all apeshit about stupid end users. Your nemesis, Bob the Retard, has clones around the world. Yesterday, I explained to him why there was a Received column in his Inbox and a Sent column in his Sent Items folder, not the other way around (I kid you not). After I left him, I suspected he didn't get it. I had a boss once that was quite the Nazi, so I guess what we did was more like revenge than prank. We changed his desktop wallpaper in RegEdit with a picture of a guy called Hermann Göring in uniform. Hearing him screaming about this like a…well…Nazi brought tears to our eyes, especially when he replaced the picture, but for “some reason” the picture was back the next day. I don’t think he was a happy man, those types usually aren’t, but taking it out on the rest of us was not fair, so I guess he deserved it.

Anyway, thanks Luke, I always enjoy reading your stuff, especially when you go all apeshit about stupid end users. Your nemesis, Bob the Retard, has clones around the world. Yesterday, I explained to him why there was a Received column in his Inbox and a Sent column in his Sent Items folder, not the other way around (I kid you not). After I left him, I suspected he didn’t get it.

]]> by: Richard http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10360 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:55:51 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10360 This made me laugh so much as it brought back many memories. I worked in small office environment where I was the IT support person. If I got bored (sometimes to frequently) pranks would happen, the desk movement was good value, likewise one guy I would take one screw out of his desk every day, mmm didn;t take too long for it to get unsteady. Another good one was to change font, background,foreground, every colour to black, that got a good reaction. Have also done the VNC bit and that is brilliant, just moving the mouse or typing the odd key just makes life fun. The screenshot one is great. The best part with my pranks is that they would come to me to fix them, thats the classic part ! This made me laugh so much as it brought back many memories. I worked in small office environment where I was the IT support person. If I got bored (sometimes to frequently) pranks would happen, the desk movement was good value, likewise one guy I would take one screw out of his desk every day, mmm didn;t take too long for it to get unsteady. Another good one was to change font, background,foreground, every colour to black, that got a good reaction. Have also done the VNC bit and that is brilliant, just moving the mouse or typing the odd key just makes life fun. The screenshot one is great. The best part with my pranks is that they would come to me to fix them, thats the classic part !

]]> by: Wikke http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10359 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:07:41 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10359 In the computer locals in my school, all pcs were with the backs to each other. We switched mouses / keyboards between two opposite computers and left. Easily discovered when you are with two, but as teenagers, we found this fun :P A good one is to place something under the 'Del'-key of a keyboard, preferrably with a computer-literate person. Every time the computer boots, it loads the BIOS setup :) hard time figuring that out. In the computer locals in my school, all pcs were with the backs to each other.
We switched mouses / keyboards between two opposite computers and left.

Easily discovered when you are with two, but as teenagers, we found this fun P

A good one is to place something under the ‘Del’-key of a keyboard, preferrably with a computer-literate person.
Every time the computer boots, it loads the BIOS setup ) hard time figuring that out.

]]> by: gp http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10358 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:43:49 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10358 the "tape in the optical mouse led" was a classic one where i worked :D the “tape in the optical mouse led” was a classic one where i worked D

]]> by: Fr3d http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10357 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:54:57 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10357 Some good stuff there :D Another one to try is the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slworking/2284086433/" rel="nofollow">broken monitor</a> image - run the photo using a slideshow tool (or similar), unplug the mouse and keyboard, and wait... ;) You could also take a screenshot of the current desktop, and overlay the above image using Photoshop so it looks even more realistic. Some good stuff there D

Another one to try is the broken monitor image - run the photo using a slideshow tool (or similar), unplug the mouse and keyboard, and wait… )

You could also take a screenshot of the current desktop, and overlay the above image using Photoshop so it looks even more realistic.

]]> by: jambarama http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10354 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:31:31 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10354 I haven't done much in the way of computer pranks, but I shared a large table with someone else for a while. It was an IT shop sow we had tons of hardware lying all over. I plugged an extra keyboard into the back of my deskmate's tower. Periodically I'd type, very quickly, "Get to work." Took him most of the day before he figured it out. Months later I got him again with a mouse by periodically jiggling it. When I worked at a software company, the guy in charge of IT did the fuzzy internet thing on april fools day. Basically he got on our firewall and played <a href="http://ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html" rel="nofollow">this trick,</a>but made the images fuzzy rather than upside down. What was really funny was that he only changed jpgs, so all the gifs & pngs were fine, and he cycled it - on for 5 minutes, off for 15 minutes. Downstairs us code monkeys figured it out pretty quick, but management, the artists, and sales didn't even complain until nearly 3pm. I haven’t done much in the way of computer pranks, but I shared a large table with someone else for a while. It was an IT shop sow we had tons of hardware lying all over. I plugged an extra keyboard into the back of my deskmate’s tower. Periodically I’d type, very quickly, “Get to work.” Took him most of the day before he figured it out. Months later I got him again with a mouse by periodically jiggling it.

When I worked at a software company, the guy in charge of IT did the fuzzy internet thing on april fools day. Basically he got on our firewall and played this trick,but made the images fuzzy rather than upside down. What was really funny was that he only changed jpgs, so all the gifs & pngs were fine, and he cycled it - on for 5 minutes, off for 15 minutes. Downstairs us code monkeys figured it out pretty quick, but management, the artists, and sales didn’t even complain until nearly 3pm.

]]> by: Steve http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10353 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:10:54 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10353 Similar to your Ghost in the Machine prank... Years ago, I worked at a government office that used OS Warp (or whatever it was called) and something called Saber Menus. Essentially, this was a pre-Windows 3.1.1 "gui" environment for DOS. As administrators, we could remotely connect to any user's machine. I watched this woman open a program, remotely of course, and then she tried to scroll down the massive list of files...as she did so I kept hitting page down :) She then hit arrow up, and I hit page up. She kept trying this to zero in on the file. Finally, she stopped and exited the program. So I loaded WordPerfect and started typing Ha ha ha ha ha ha :0 Similar to your Ghost in the Machine prank…

Years ago, I worked at a government office that used OS Warp (or whatever it was called) and something called Saber Menus. Essentially, this was a pre-Windows 3.1.1 “gui” environment for DOS. As administrators, we could remotely connect to any user’s machine. I watched this woman open a program, remotely of course, and then she tried to scroll down the massive list of files…as she did so I kept hitting page down ) She then hit arrow up, and I hit page up. She kept trying this to zero in on the file. Finally, she stopped and exited the program. So I loaded WordPerfect and started typing Ha ha ha ha ha ha :0

]]> by: Luke Maciak http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10352 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:55:56 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10352 Ah, yes - I corrected it. Oh well, I was close enough. :) Ah, yes - I corrected it. Oh well, I was close enough. )

]]> by: chris http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10351 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:46:58 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/09/office-pranks/#comment-10351 <blockquote>German layout is a good one since it is essentially QWERTY but with Z and Y swapped around [making it QWERTZ]</blockquote> fixed

German layout is a good one since it is essentially QWERTY but with Z and Y swapped around [making it QWERTZ]

fixed

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