Now, having said the below…

Here is a nifty list of some all time great office pranks you can pull on your co-workers this April Fools Day, or any day.

10. Install the Blue Screen of Death Screensaver
9. Fake a Desktop with Screenshot Wallpaper
8. Schedule a Phone Call with a Text-to-Speech Message from Wakerupper.com
7. Fill an Office with Packing Peanuts (Or Make It Look That Way)
6. Remote Control Your Co-Workers’ Computer with VNC
5. Message Co-Workers with NET SEND
4. “Break” Your Victim’s LCD Screen with Wallpaper
3. Hijack Firefox with the Total Confusion Pack Extension (Enabled on April 1st Only)
2. Customize the Office HP Printer’s Console Message
1. Turn Web Pages Upside Down

For the details on how to pull this off, click below:

Top 10 Harmless Geek Pranks (Lifehacker)

Related posts:

1. Office Pranks- Freeze Someone’s Computer
2. April Fools Day Humbug
3. Good April Fools

I don’t know about you, but April Fools day annoys me. On the one hand, most of your so-called hilarious April Fools jokes suck. On the other hand, I have to spend the day being slightly on guard. God forbid any good or bad news comes my way. I have to spend the day being suspicious of everyone and everything.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced an April Fools joke that was actually brilliant? Let me know in the comments.

(And yes, I know, it’s technically April FOOL day. Still annoying.)

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Related posts:

1. April Fools Office Pranks
2. Good April Fools
3. Fighting Back Against Windows

If we put our heads together, we can surely add a bunch to this list. Pitch in with your favorites in the comments.

C/O TimesOnline for the original post.

P.S.: Yes, that’s British slang you’re reading. I’ve included links to definitions.

1. Losing track of gossip. There’s nothing worse than sharing a juicy piece of semi-anonymous scuttlebutt with a colleague only to get halfway through the story and realize that it’s about them. “Did you hear about that bloke who has been sleeping in the stationery supply room on level three for the past week because his wife kicked him out? Oh, right. Yes. I suppose you have.”

2. Inaccurate blamestorming. Righteous anger has its place but shouldn’t be let loose indiscriminately. It’s hard to come back from “I’ve never seen such incompetence”…particularly if it transpires that it’s your own.

3. Referring to a colleague by his nickname and only later remembering that, until you spoke to him, he didn’t actually realize that people referred to him as Stalin.

4. Leaving the lavatory in an unpleasant state. I don’t know why people do this, but I hope that one day they step out of their stinky cubicle to discover that their manager is next in the queue. Maybe then they’ll step back in and flush properly.

5. Mentioning a colleague’s hangover/faked sickie/history of cocaine abuse in front of the boss. You think that you’re being matey and fun. Your colleague thinks that you’re trying to get her sacked.

6. Hitting reply to all. By now there have been so many warnings about why not to hit this button that, if you do tell everyone in your company exactly what you think of your chief executive’s dress sense, people are likely to think it’s a deliberate ploy rather than a fit of idiocy.

7. Sending out a recall three days after the dodgy reply to all. If you’ve left it that long it’s really too late. All you’re doing is reminding people of your initial faux pas.

Related posts:

1. Ask Brian – How to Go Public With Workplace Romance?
2. Don’t Bring Your Politics Into The Workplace
3. Filling Out Paper Job Applications: Unwritten Etiquette Rules for Requesting and Submitting

I’m definitely in a hardly working mode today. Since I’m sitting around waiting for the live broadcast from MacWorld, I’m in a time wasting/tech state of mind. (At least I don’t have to liveblog Steve-o’s address like the poor souls at Gizmodo)

I started looking for resources to help you browse at work without your boss finding out what you’re up to. As you probably know, 3 out of 4 companies use various software programs to monitor their employees’ online activity.

The bottom line to what I’ve discovered is that the person you most want to kiss up to in your office is your IT dude. You can basically do anything you want and get away with it as long as you have occasional use of the Sys Admin password, or else can bribe your network administrator to let you install certain things for you.

First thing you’ll want to do is configure your browser to not track your web usage. This is done fairly easily. (Options in Firefox; Internet Options in IE. Look for the security settings.) And remember to go in and delete your cache occasionally.

Next, I’d recommend using Firefox exclusively so that you utilize an array of privacy plugins.

Finally, grok this list of downloadable programs from Wired:

»Cover your clacks
If you suspect the man is logging your every keystroke, install Spyware Doctor 3.8 (www.pctools.com). It’ll expose Any program running silently in the background while you work. (Note: you may need an admin password to install the app. If your IT department refuses to help, try bribing them with a spool of blank DVDs.)

»Surf undercover
Prevent your boss from tracking your daily URL crawl with a Web-based program like The Cloak (www.the-cloak.com), which masks the addresses of sites you visit by redirecting your browsing through its domain.

»Change up your email
Don’t use your work email for anything other than, well, work. If you want to send private messages over your employer’s servers, set up an encrypted email account with a provider like Hushmail (www.hushmail.com).

»IM on the DL
With an admin password, you can download an encrypted service like PSST (psst.sourceforge.net) or a program like Encrypted Messenger (www.johnytech.com), which encodes most IM clients. The quick and dirty way: open an AOL IM account and use the Web-based chat service (aimexpress.aol.com). With all the Web activity at work, the chance that anyone will notice your texting is small.

»Get peace of mind
Still spooked? check out the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s guide to cloaking tools: www.epic.org/privacy/tools.html.

Of course, I don’t condone using the above tools to do evil. And you shouldn’t do anything that’s against your company’s policies. Data security is a big deal these days and you can get fired or worse if you cause a breach. Fair warning: doing bad things and getting fired is on you.

Related posts:

1. How NOT To Waste Time On The Web At Work
2. More Ways To Browse The Web At Work (Without Getting Caught)
3. Ask Brian – My Boss Just Got Fired

This morning we’re initiating a new category of office pranks. If you’ve got pranks you’d like to share, send them in.

This little doozy is an annoying prank you can pull on anyone who has a Windows computer. In essence, when the victim is away, you take a screenshot of their desktop. Then you turn off all the desktop icons and make your screenshot become the wallpaper. When the victim returns to his or her computer, they’ll see their normal desktop just as they left it. But somehow… none of the icons work. They’ll click and click and click, but nothing will happen.

Complete step by step instructions here (with pictures) from Instructables.com

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2. Fighting Back Against Windows
3. In Praise Of Computer Solitaire