Computer Prank

I do not remember where I had read this prank from. But this can definitley get someone real good. All you need to do is have a couple of minutes to pull this off.

First, wait for your bud/wife/son/anyone to leave their computer unattended for about three minutes. Then you press that little "Print Screen" button. You then open up Paint and copy and paste it in there. Once you do that, save it and "X" out. Now, delete all of the files on the desktop except for "Recycle Bin". (Also turn off auto-arrange.) After that, go ahead and right-click on the desktop and go to Properties. Once in there, hit the "Desktop" tab. Browse for the picture you saved and set it as the new background. Now, back out of that and watch as your friend gets frustrated with the computer.

What do ya'll think?

I've done that one before, hehe....(and had it done to me, though I had already known the trick at the time)...

The fine art of cubicle pranks....

Another fun one...(though you have to be pretty in with the boss for this one)....

Take saran wrap, and tape up the cubicle opening.
Now fill the cubicle with packing peanuts.... Classic!

If a hunt and peck typist, try taking off their keyboard keys and rearranging them....

EDIT: A note on the previous prank, before taking the screenshot, be sure to move the mouse to a place it won't be visible for the shot (or two mouse pointers may give it away too soon)

[edit on 10-5-2005 by Gazrok]

A childish computer prank that I like to play is to turn the monitor brightness etc down to the lowest setting, thus giving you a screen that is blank but still on.
I then turn the monitor off...

When the person returns to the computer they turn the monitor on thinking someones been childish and turned the monitor off...turning on the monitor the screen is still blank... a look of panic on their face always seems to create a look of amusement on mine.

Funny how many people actually fall for this :shk:

A good one with old Mac system was to put the "Shutdown" script into the "Startup Items" folder so everytime someone turned on their computer, it would automatically shutdown as soon as the OS booted.

Here are a couple of them.

At work, another programmer and I created two little programs that run hidden in memory. One was called IClick, the other MMove. Both were created as bots for an online game, but the prank potential didn't take long to realize. IClick clicks your mouse every 55 seconds. We created another one along these lines that clicks the mouse at a certain interval (the other programmer had to shut down his computer to stop it when I ran it remotely on his computer with a .1 second interval between clicks.) The MMove program would do one of two things. Either it would shake your pointer, moving it randomly a few pixles in a different direction than you were moving your mouse, or, with a setting enabled, would shift your pointer 100 points up and 100 points to the left when you'd click.

Hehe we got a lot of complaints of bad mice for a few days before someone caught on.

We've also done the desktop screenshot, too.

Another fun one works when you have cubes. Usually at the bottom of the cube is an access panel for your ethernet connection and phone line. We would take those off, grab two USB extension cords, and switch people's mice. So the person in one cube would be controlling the other person's pointer.

Now that I think about it, it would be even better if we could set up remote access so it appears everything you're doing is happening on your computer, but all of your files are gone.

Then there's the fun little virus pranks. One which would open a window which listed all the contents of the hard drive with the message, "Deleting..." That one elected a screem or two. Our response was great, too. Along the lines of, "Wow, that's a bummer. Well, we'll be able to reinstall everything, and since you're supposed to put everything on the fileserver, it's all been backed up, so there's no real problem." The look on their faces as they tried to figure out how to tell us they didn't back the stuff up on the fileserver was priceless!

There's also a way in Windows to remap keys. This is really great for the hunt and peck typers or those who look at the keyboard instead of the monitor. Switching m and n or o and e often goes unnoticed a bit longer, too.

Finally, there's the auto correct in Office. If you can access their computer, open Word and change something common, like "the" into something else. Then, every time they type "the", it'll change to that text. A lot of people get nervous and think they downloaded a virus and are afraid to say anything. Good times!

Yeah, we get a lot of work done. Really.

Junglejake: Would you be willing to distribute those two programs? If so, is IClick and MMove for Mac or Windows?

I got a major computer illiterate that is just begging to be pranked!