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#1 2008-03-14 2:45 pm
- dwboston
- Member
- Registered: 2008-03-14
- Posts: 1
A prank to some, vandalism to others
I love good pranks - one of the reasons NBC's "The Office" is so funny. Nothing makes me laugh so hard as one of Jim's pranks on Dwight - like moving his desk into the men's room, or giving Dwight a piece of candy every time his Outlook program chirps when there's a new message -making Dwight wonder why he always salivates when he hears a new email alert.
But some of the pranks published in your April issue are pushing the edge into the area of techno-vandalism, and I'm a bit surprised you encouraged such activities by promoting them in the magazine. Dragging hundreds of folders into the dock - something that can only be fixed by deleting the plist file - is hardly a prank. And bordering on downright illegal is your reader's advice to hack into a person's system preferences in order to get control of their desktop remotely.
The Mac's popularity is in part due to its relatively risk free security. And the large majority of mac users would never know how to fix some of the issues created by your readers --- and in case you haven't tried calling Apple recently to get help over the phone to resolve such issues --- it's a very expensive endeavor unless you have Applecare.
So if you're really in need of pushing the edges of Pranksterdom, stick to moving your co-worker's desk into the men's (or women's) room, don't go screwing around with their system (unless it's a Windows machine 
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#2 2008-03-14 5:13 pm
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
dwboston wrote:
I love good pranks.
So.. don't go screwing around with their system (unless it's a Windows machine
I think, pranks to that, you just forfeited the moral high ground.
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
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#3 2008-03-14 7:01 pm
- Rik
- Unemployed Guy
- Administrator
- From: San Francisco CA USA
- Registered: 2001-08-06
- Posts: 517
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
Or just keep your pranks simple and easy from which to recover, such as System Preferences > Displays > Rotate > 180° > Confirm > Command-W.
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#4 2008-03-14 9:00 pm
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
I seem to remember back in the UBB days (when the mag went by another name) they had a similar thing where one of the pranks went so far as to hide a shutdown script in the startup items folder.
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#5 2008-03-15 12:59 am
- 333imacman
- Disappointed
- From: Minnesota
- Registered: 2002-05-26
- Posts: 2171
- Website
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
I tried that. It was not well received, but still funny (to me)
i don't understand most things
i don't really want to
i just want the strength
to keep fighting it
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#7 2008-03-31 12:02 am
- Scott Baret
- Member
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 54
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
This reminds me of the olden days when you could make startup screens. I remember reading a prank once where someone made a startup screen that looked like the old system bomb message and had the Mac boot up with that. (This was back in the System 6 and 7 days).
I also heard about the shut down prank, although I heard of doing on Performas when they gave you the •Shut Down DA.
There was also a public domain prank utility called "No Vowels" that would impair your keyboard so it couldn't type A, E, I, O, or U. I had the unfortunate reality of having this one done to me. I almost went out and bought another ADB keyboard that day...but when my System Startup disk took care of the problem I realized that it was indeed that prank.
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#8 2008-03-31 12:26 am
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
OS X ruined one of the best pranks ever, which was to set a tiling background image of trash cans making the real one damn near impossible to find.
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#9 2008-03-31 12:54 am
- FutureDreamz
- 1.1.2.3.5.8.13.21.34.55
- From: カナダ
- Registered: 2007-01-07
- Posts: 4511
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
Scott Baret wrote:
This reminds me of the olden days when you could make startup screens. I remember reading a prank once where someone made a startup screen that looked like the old system bomb message and had the Mac boot up with that. (This was back in the System 6 and 7 days).
You can still do that with Mac OS X, but I don't remember how.
Thanks for clicking.
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#10 2008-03-31 1:33 am
- NAG
- A witch!
- Royal Wombat
- From: /usr/local/apps/nag
- Registered: 2000-09-22
- Posts: 30229
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
Anyway, all the pranks I did were either easy to clean up or they even cleaned themselves up (if a script was involved).
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#11 2008-03-31 7:19 am
Re: A prank to some, vandalism to others
Powerpoint is a fun pranking tool.
1) Screenshot.
2) Several slides of the screenshot so clicking on folders and menus accomplishes nothing.
3) Screenshot with various, horrible-sounding error messages.
4) BSOD. (It's even more startling on the Mac.)
5) Final slide with some sort of 'gotcha' or claim the prank.
Harmless, goes away as easily as quitting the program, causes some real upset if they've got important work going on RAPIDLY followed by the relief that it was a prank. Easy to do in a minute or two if a person leaves the room for coffee or something.
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