Top Ten Tech Pranks

Did you Google Helvetica yet today? Or take a look at Hulu’s new layout? We’ve compiled our ten favorite April Fool’s Day tech pranks from around the web today – see anything worth repeating next year?

10. Break an optical mouse: a piece of tape over the optical tracker renders a mouse useless. Easiest yet strangely enjoyable.

9. The Clippy Attack is particularly useful for your most obnoxious coworker. Warning: works on PCs only.

8. No one I know received a strange “tech help” phone call today. Nope, not me. Special thanks to Nathan for that one.

7. Another PC-only trick that works wonders is the Blue Screen of Death screensaver.

6. Know anyone who uses Firefox? A quick add-on easily “two-steps” their browser, sending the user back two pages each time they hit “back” – but the real fun lies in the fact that this trick is randomized. Pay attention when the frustration kicks in.

5. Convert the copier into a Linguistic Module. This makes interns crazy: caution, this module is in Learning Mode!

4. Google Helvetica to trick any font fans.

3. GMail Motions! Quick, what’s the action for “If you’re leaving for Buenos Aires next week…” ?

2. Turn a screensaver into an unclickable nightmare.

1. At Number One, we have my personal favorite. If you have a coworker who overuses exclamation points and excessively punctuates, confuse the heck out of their keyboard and remap all those pesky !!!!s and ???s.