April Fool's Day: 18 Tech pranks to keep spirits high in office

April Fool’s Day is almost here. Celebrated on 1^st of April every year, it is a day for playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The victim is called the ‘April Fool’. April Fool’s Day is an old custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon one's neighbour. It is also known that a person playing a joke after midday is the "April fool" themselves.

In order to help you play a prank on your friends, colleagues and loved ones, we from the tech bench have collated a few ideas that you can use to play a prank or two on your victim.

Find a sticky note or sticky tape and stick it to the bottom of the mouse. Watch them go mad when the cursor budges to move.

Plug in two wireless mice to your colleagues desktop. Keep moving the mouse in opposite directions when he is using his. Watch him go nuts over the ghostly behavior of the mouse. Even better, switch the mouse connectors of two adjacent PCs and watch the two users in action.

Take a screenshot of your colleague’s desktop and use it as the wallpaper. Now go to the display settings and turn off all icons. See them freak out on believing their PC has frozen.

Download a broken screen app on your friend’s or spouse’s Android or iPhone and watch them freak out.

Logon to www.prankdial.com and enter your friend’s phone number. Choose the prank you want to play on him and watch them go crazy when they get freaky calls from unknown numbers. (Available in America, Spain and France only. For international numbers, you may need to pay)

Make your colleague’s system shut down automatically when they use a particular program. Simply right click on the program icon and click on Edit Properties. Enter this in the Target field and save it “%windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -r -t 00”

Head to the control panel of your victim’s PC and change the keyboard language. Watch them freak out.

Switch your victim’s speakers to your PC (if you sit beside them) and randomly play freaky sounds and music.

Download this GIF animation and send it to your friend while in a conversation on a phone chat. They will keep waiting thinking you will are still typing something. Click here to download the three dot animation.

Rename your name to something weird in the contacts list of your friend’s phone. Now keep sending him weird messages and watch the expression on his face.

Connect your computer with your colleague printer (wired or via the network) and print weird messages without him or her knowing who did it.

Grab a bunch of funny sounds and tunes and switch the default Windows tones to the ones you copy. Turn up the speaker to the highest volume. Watch them go nuts when their PC responds to errors.

Overclock the mouse speed in the settings in the control panel. Watch them trying to control the mouse with all their might.

Flip your victim’s screen upside down. All you need to do is press CTRL + ALT + down arrow (or head to the display properties and rotate the display by 90-degrees or 180-degrees)

Rename all folders on the desktop with weird names of characters from their favourite movie.

Dry out some white glue on a sheet of cling wrap or butter paper. Let it look like spilled milk. Now place it over your friend’s keyboard or laptop. Watch the fun.

Got some old keyboard lying around? Plant some seeds between the keys a few days prior. Once the saplings take growth, switch the keyboard with your victim’s just a day before.

Grab some old magnets and place them on the extreme left of your colleague's Macbook. Watch the laptop go to sleep mode. you could camouflage the magnets within a small soft toy and simply place it on his/her Macbook and watch him/her go crazy trying to turn it on.

So, what are you going to prank your colleague with?

Do let us know if you have any more pranks, and we could include them in this list.