April Fool’s Day Prank Ideas

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
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Wired has a list of their top 10 April Fool’s Day pranks submitted by readers. Good stuff here.

People are too reliant on some common programs that help them cheat, such as the Autocorrect feature in MS Office. Capitalize on their laziness by adding a few of your favorite "alternative" spellings. Common words like "about" or "together" work well. Even better, try subtly adjusting the spelling of your victim's name. It's so hard-wired into most people's fingers, they hardly look at it.
Click to expand...

Post other suggestions here.
 
Back when I worked as the manager for a local PC repair shop I presented one of the employees with a pink slip in front of everyone else. He packed his stuff up and walked out the door. When he got to his car he found an envelope underneath the windshield wiper. It read:

"You just got owned. Get your ass back in here and get those systems done."

There was also a bonus check included for being a great employee. I wouldn't have been able to pull it off without the help of the others. :D
 
I almost forgot about April Fool's Day!!! I just started working in an office environment about 1 month ago so any suggestions would be great! But IT has the system on a pretty good lock down so it would probably boil down to cubicle shenanigans. Nonetheless, I am going try and do my best!
 
AceGoober said:
Back when I worked as the manager for a local PC repair shop I presented one of the employees with a pink slip in front of everyone else. He packed his stuff up and walked out the door. When he got to his car he found an envelope underneath the windshield wiper. It read:

"You just got owned. Get your ass back in here and get those systems done."

There was also a bonus check included for being a great employee. I wouldn't have been able to pull it off without the help of the others. :D
Click to expand...

Interesting. Thing is a lot of people would have not come back in.

I've wired a reciever for a wireless keyboard/mouse inside someones system before. Took them days to figure it out.

Enabling telnet server to send commands to someones system use to be the way to go but now we just use PsExec. You could also use the powershell I guess. PsExec lets you send commands to another system on the same domain. Yea be creative.

Another great idea is to get a copy of someones car keys and move their car on them at random. Move it over a few rows, turn it around in the parking spot, etc. It is best done over a few week period.
 
not a tech related April fools but it is still the best one i ever pulled

if you have a white toilet seat and a male room mate/father/spouse etc.

Buy a tube of white mint toothpaste, carefully spread a thin layer on a toilet seat. when someone sits down the toothpaste will start to BURN. This works best on guys because the only reason we sit down is well... time consuming. it will be a battle of wills, avoid the burning or well... use you imagination.
 
unplug the vga/dvi cable from the back of the comp just enough to not get a signal. causes mass chaos for hours lol

did that to the entire verizon managers office and they were on WTF alert for a while lmao
 
A friend of mine left his pc unlocked a few days ago, to come back to the old classic prank: screenshot their desktop, then hide all their icons and hide their taskbar... make screenshot the current desktop. 'Course, this doesn't take long to figure out, but it's still funny.

To make it one better, find your victim and change his OS's sound settings... ie., play a certain annoying .wav file upon minimizing a window.

This happened to my friend and he was so aggravated by it... plus it was a really, really harsh, annoying cackling sound.

One other goodie: place a thin post-it note, chopped down to size, over the optical/laser view hole on the bottom of a mouse. Until your victim takes the note off, their cursor won't move on the screen, because the mouse can't track its motion. I love it.
 
The classic keyboard remap is one of my favorites. Have the re-mapper load up after login of course. Gibberish is a language too;)
 
Most office PCs I've seen use a kind of 'generic' cable for the keyboard and mouse. For users on systems with PS/2 connectors, this is GREAT. Just swap them in the back. :cool:

See, the thing is, you look at the top...and it looks good. You look at the back of the PC...everything is plugged in. And with most cables tied together in wire bundles, you can't easily "track" the right line down. Both devices SEEM to do something, just...not the right thing. :D :D

This is even better for KVM systems. :eek:
 
We pulled a good one on a clueless developer a year or so back. It required a bit of preparation. We took an empty case that was the same model as his and tricked it out to look exactly the same. Stickers in the right places, noticeable scratches etc. When he was busy in another room, we took his computer (still on) and put it on the opposite desk, we then replaced it with our empty case. We unplugged all his cables (apart from VGA and Power) and threaded them in through the empty hole in the back of his "new" computer.

This was hilarious. First he couldn't understand why his system wasn't working, then when he called us to take a look at it, we popped the side off to take a look and accused him of loosing his motherboard. Despite beeing a developer he had no idea how the insides of a computer go together, so we had him looking all over the office for his "lost" motherboard.
 
The 'You must have lost your motherboard, we have to find it' had me laugh my ass off.
 
Cracked LCD background!!!
We just bought a new plasma TV, my wife won't know the differnce. I am so going to make that a wall paper on the media PC and hide the icons and such. When she gets home I blame the cat and she'll flip!!!

It will be joyous
 
Someone just mentioned it, but it's something I am going to do is to change the language settings for the keyboard to dvorak instead qwerty.
 
Reverse the mouse buttons, redirect shortcuts, change program icons

Turn down monitor's brightness and contrast so it looks black, used this one a lot with CRTs but most LCDs won't go black.
 
last year we used an extra USB port inside a Coworker's computer to attach an RF keyboard/Mouse receiver and then use the long range keyboard/trackball keyboard, from the next room to mess with him. Requires an internal USB bracket to mount to the 10pin header on the mother board (and an unused internal USB port)


old standbys of-
Taping the mouse,
recalibrating the mouse, (so that it works at a 45* angle) {requires the Microsoft Explorer Mouse driver}
setting a task in task manager that will turn the screen 90* every 15 minutes was a good one.

changing the audio scheme to random animal sounds, and setting alarms of sheep or cattle noises gets a laugh.
(but those are daily pranks around here.
 
I've done the desktop screenshot thing to soooo many people, all throughout the year. I've even gotten some hard core geeks with it...alot of WTF and Shit, something's wrong here...I've actually seen one guy reboot his compter 8 times and try going into the DOS setup screen, which only frustrated him more!!! LOL... Goood times!

And, the more icons on the desktop, the better!
 
Hiding a wireless KVM switch to force a monitor to turn blank. Taking screenshot of a person's desktop and then making it the background and hiding the desktop icons is always fun.

Rotating the monitor in graphics options to be upside down.
 
swatbat said:
Interesting. Thing is a lot of people would have not come back in.
Click to expand...

You'd kinda want to know what kind of person it is first. I would laugh about it coming back in... Some people aren't made for jokes. Sad, really. I can take a joke and give it back just as bad!!
 
Some monitor drivers (ATi) allow you to rotate the output 90, 180, or 270 degrees.

Set it to 180 degrees to the image is upside down. Then invert the physical monitor, so the image is right side up again, but the monitor is upside down.

Man you should see the look of confusion when they try to "right" their monitor.
 
There are some people in the office that like to pick on one of the less computer savy users. It doesn't have to be April 1st for them, just any day of the year.

List of pranks pulled in the last month or so.
- screenshot desktop and make it the background
- put tape over the botton of optial mouse
- swap keyboard and mouse cables
- connect wireless power device (not sure what to call it) to monitor power cord so that they could turn the monitor off and on from accross the room
- disable USB ports in bios
- disable harddrive in bios
- rotate desktop
- swapped keyboard and mouse so that it was connected to machine on desk faceing user (with other usering know about it so that they could do stuff to make the victem think their machine was going crazy)
- disconnected power connectors from the motherboard
 
A friend of mine spent a few hours at his friend's computer once, accomplishing several things:

1. Moved all of his MP3's to a hidden folder.
2. Took the Ja Rule and Metallica song (his friend HATED it) that hit the net a few years ago, and made an equal number of copies as there were MP3s.
3. Meticulously renamed every MP3 to make it appear like nothing had changed.
4. Laughed as the guy realized over the next few days that every MP3 he had was a copy of a song he couldn't stand.

Another good one from years back:

My friend Chris worked at Staples, and informed a mutual friend of ours that he had several CD's saved on one of the display models as .WAV files (one .WAV for a whole CD). So the mutual friend went in one day and changed the Windows startup sound file to the entire first Godsmack CD.
 
ill be applying both the cracked LCD and the blank desktop screenie to both my dad and my brother.

EPIC win
 
Nice one is to put a piece of clear tape over the microphone part of the telephone receiver. Callers can hear a little, just enough to have the caller to speak up. Works great.
 
I've put tape/whiteout over the optics on an optical mouse.
Covered the USB header on a mouse so there's no contact made
randomly raise/lower chairs a little
(stolen from the office) put pix of a person around hte office with a mustache on and caption reading "flasher"
unscrew the back of their office chair, and leave it so it looks 'normal'.. they lean back and fall over. tehehe.
 
The Intel boards with integrated video have quick-keys for this. CTRL+SHIFT+ARROW I think. You could map that to space or enter and that'd be fun. Hrm - might have to try that actually. =)
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Some monitor drivers (ATi) allow you to rotate the output 90, 180, or 270 degrees.

Set it to 180 degrees to the image is upside down. Then invert the physical monitor, so the image is right side up again, but the monitor is upside down.

Man you should see the look of confusion when they try to "right" their monitor.
Click to expand...

Also, if the keyboard shortcut isn't disabled it work when the pc is locked...

Ctrl + Alt + Arrow key

Have fun!
 
I'm still a big fan of going to the kitchen sink, pointing the little spray nozzle toward the front, and putting a rubber band over the handle -- because nobody really looks at that thing when they're just getting a cup of water. Oh, the surprised shrieks are music.
 
Come in Early,
empty the coffee pot and put an out of order sign on the coffee maker. (one step further, throw the breaker for the coffee pot so it does not work when the next person tries to make coffee.):eek:

switch the coffee grounds in the can to decaf :D (the grounds in the can not the can.
Or show up early and make a big pot of decaf. (or if your office is already decaffeinated, make espresso)
 
dj_spanmaster said:
I'm still a big fan of going to the kitchen sink, pointing the little spray nozzle toward the front, and putting a rubber band over the handle -- because nobody really looks at that thing when they're just getting a cup of water. Oh, the surprised shrieks are music.
Click to expand...
Haha my brother did that to me a few years back. It wasn't even April Fool's and he did it. Good times, good times.
 
Most Dell monitors have an individual R-G-B setting..

Take some Finger paint in Red and Blue and Leave a puddle below the monitor like they dripped out.
In the monitors settings, Turn the Red and Blue colors down to "0", leave the Green at 100.. (Everything is now in Black and Green)

Tell them that the Red and Blue Liquid Crystals leaked out..
 
One year me and my friends made my brothers computers start up noise a bunch of sex sounds. oh that was great.
 
Gradually add nickles to the handset of their office phone over a period of several weeks, then remove them all at once and watch them slam the headset into their head when they answer the phone.
 
Not tec related but if the target person drives a rear wheel drive car/truck, ducktape stick on wheelweight to one side of there drive shaft. (just make sure to remove them before they go trade there vehicle in >.>)
 
If they've got a wireless keyboard & mouse, switch receivers so they're controlling someone else's PC or nothing at all, while you or an accomplice, is actually controlling the machine.

Or:
If everyone has the same keyboard, especially if they're easily disassembled membrane types, a dab of superglue in the hole for the keycap should prevent it from working.
Variant: If you have a flaky spare to sacrifice, superglue all of the keys except Ctrl, Alt, and Delete.
 
We have used a Travel Wireless Mouse connected to the bottom of a rolling chair. Tucked out sight, but just off of the ground. Every time they move their chair the mouse moves.
 
Combine a few of the pranks here and you get:
Take screenshot and set as background, only, rotate it 180 degrees first.
hide icons and taskbar
Rotate the screen in drivers 180 degrees
then rotate the physical monitor 180 degrees

When they come back to thier desk, it looks as if someone has simply turned the monitor around, watch the fun ;-)
 
So this morning, I did the cracked LCD screen on my computer at work (I made it my screensaver). I taped the optical mouse and unplugged the keyboard, and then informed the IT guy as he was about to go get a new monitor that it wasn't really broken. It was epic.
 
stain. said:
I've put tape/whiteout over the optics on an optical mouse.
Covered the USB header on a mouse so there's no contact made
randomly raise/lower chairs a little
(stolen from the office) put pix of a person around hte office with a mustache on and caption reading "flasher"
unscrew the back of their office chair, and leave it so it looks 'normal'.. they lean back and fall over. tehehe.
Click to expand...

Haha, my buddy doesn't have an optical mouse. So all I needed to do was put tape over the ball.

Also tape up the handle on their office chairs and raise it slightly. When they sit down, it'll plummet. :D
 
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