April Fool Computer Pranks

Contents

Computer pranks are only funny if you are in the right mood. The extra factor on 'All Fool's Day', is that the victim too has to be in the right mood for the hoax.

Top Ten April Fools
Computer Pranks
April Fools Day
Pranks for the Office
Virus Warning
April Fools
Day Pranks from the Classroom
April Fool's Day Hoaxes
Computer 'Bad Day'

Top Ten April Fools Computer Pranks

Unplug all PC's keyboards.
Send a colleague a fake email from HR, demanding that they go to the HR floor to discuss their email habits.
Move the contents of a desk to another part of the office.
Tell male colleagues it's "wear a brightly coloured shirt day".
Switch the refrigerator's handle.
Hang clear cellophane across a doorway.
Hand someone a phone message asking them to return an urgent call from Mr Lyon. The number listed is for the local zoo.
Tape is very good when placed over the pickup button on a telephone - no ring tone follows.
Do some "replacement changes" by switching the coffee room's sugar with salt.
Go into the victim's office and locate every pencil and pen in their desk. Paint the tips with clear nail polish. When they try to write, none of them will work. [After the prank is revealed, the nail polish can be removed by dipping the pens and pencils in polish remover]

April Fools Day Pranks for the Office

'Office pranks are good for morale and could even help reduce stress,' a new report has claimed.

Will and Guy suggest that pranksters consider their victims carefully to ensure appropriateness. We have been friends for many years have learned that Guy is much more relaxed about pranks than Will - so tread carefully.

'Playing a practical joke on a colleague could encourage creativity and improve team-working,' according to an executive jobsite. 'When people come together to create a prank, it encourages creativity, teamwork and gives the office a shared experience outside of the workload.' So writes Sarah Drew, general manager of TheLadders.co.uk.

Whoopee cushions may be deemed inappropriate.

However, an alternative view is taken by Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of human resources at CareerBuilder.com when she says, 'Pranking at work can be risky business.'

Virus Warning

Even the most advanced ant-virus programs from McAfee cannot take care of this bug. Norton is no help either.

Virus Symptoms:

Tricks you into sending blank emails.
Results in you sending an email to the wrong person.
Causes you to send the email back to the person who sent it to you.
Makes you forget to affix the attachment.
Triggers your pressing 'SEND' before you've finished.
Forces you to hit 'DELETE' instead of 'SEND.'
Pressurizes you into clicking 'SEND' when you should click 'DELETE.'
Causes you to send the same email twice.
Causes you to send the same email twice.
This virus only affects those who were born before 1958.

Oh, I nearly forgot, this virus is called the: 'C-NILE VIRUS.'

April Fools Day Pranks from the Classroom

Ned and his photography

When I was a green horn teacher I was slightly shocked by some of the strokes that older teachers pulled on their students. One episode that opened my eyes was Ned's photography stunt. Because of cut-backs, old Ned Foreman had to run his 3rd year photography class (now called Year 9?) with no money for film.

What Ned did was to assure his pupils that there was film in the cameras. He then send them around and about to take pictures for their projects. When it came to printing the non-existent photographs, Ned had a myriad of excuses; he seemed to invent a different excuse for every class. If he was in a bad mood, Ned would stage an event where the class duffer opened the cameras. Ned then lambasted the stooge for accidentally exposing some old film he that he secreted in the cameras between lessons.

If he was in a good mood, Ned would take partial responsibility himself, I remember him spellbinding my class with a dramatic tale of how a bird flew into the photography dark room (aka his kitchen) and caused a shaft of light to expose the film. On another occasion it was a long saga about how a rabid dog ate the film.

Guy the Greenhorn and his yogurt project

As a greenhorn, I was the reverse of Ned. I remember devising a bold project whereby the class made yogurt out of sour milk. It would be
illegal now of course, but rules were lax 25 years ago. Far from giving the class reasons why the sour milk did not turn into yogurt, I spent my own money and bought a dozen real cartons of plain yogurt and claimed that their experiment was a great success.

Guy and the Cactus - April Fools Day Prank

Years later when I was an older and wiser teacher, I pulled a stunt on my class. The project for the Easter term was cactus. I invested some of the departmental budget in some nice cactus plants for the pupils to take cuttings, we even had proper pots and a greenhouse to keep them warm.

Next, I arranged for a class outing to visit a local expert and admire his collection of cacti. When they returned to the lab, the class were impressed, but they now wanted to grow their own cactus from seed. Have you ever seen cactus seeds? They look just like gravel. Today is March 31st, what shall I do for tomorrow's lesson?

Time for an April Fools joke.
I could hardly keep a straight face as I told them that I managed to get some Cactus seed at great expense. In fact I was giving them gravel that I picked up on the way to the lesson. My pupils dutifully planted the 'seeds' in their pots. Finally, we formed a crocodile and deferentially stored the 'seeds' in the greenhouse to germinate over Easter. At this point the bell went for the end of the lesson, so I dismissed them with the words, 'You know those Cactus seeds you just planted - April Fool'.

Tech Support Jokes

Perhaps one of these jokes will inspire you for an April Fools computer joke.

Double-space
Customer: 'My disk ran out of space when trying to save my Word document, so I changed it from double spaced to single spaced and it still wouldn't fit!'

Change of Mind
Customer: I keep getting inappropriate pop-ups on my computer and don't want my wife to think that it's me.'
Advisor: 'I will remove them for you.'

Customer: 'How do I get them back when she is not in?'

Change Channel?
Customer: How do I change channel on my monitor?
Advisor: Your monitor won't have channels like a TV.
Customer: But I was watching the internet channel the other day and now I just get the word processing channel.

See more April Fools Hoaxes

Footnote
Please send us your April Fool's computer pranks and practical jokes.