April Fools' Day Mac Pranks
April Fools’ Day is tomorrow, and pranksters everywhere are most likely planning new ways to mess with their friends, family and co-workers. While classics such as the toothpaste Oreo, rubber banded dishes sprayer, and decaf switch out—seriously evil—consistently get the job done, this year we thought it would be fun to compile a short list of (mostly) harmless Mac themed pranks.
Misbehaving Mice
Quickly becoming a classic itself, this prank has officially replaced unplugging your victim’s peripherals from their desktop Mac. As more mice become wireless, it’s the only way to ensure chaos. Simply place a small piece of tape, the more opaque the better, over the optical “eye” on the underside of your victim’s mouse. While most users will figure this prank out within a few moments, less tech savvy users will take considerably longer.
Curse the Cursor
Though intended to make OS X accessible to everyone, the Universal Access preference pane in System Preferences can be a prankster’s paradise. A harmless prank which will bewilder many unsuspecting users, is the super sized cursor. Navigate to System Preferences > Universal Access > Mouse and drag the slider next to “Cursor Size” all the way to the right. Your target will have no idea what to do with their jumbo cursor.
A Negative View
Here’s a quick but powerful prank that requires only momentary access to your victim’s keyboard. To invert the colors of any Mac’s screen, simply press the following combination of keys: Control + Option + Command + 8. Suddenly things will get very negative—especially your target’s attitude, unless you eventually fill them in on the secret key combo which can also be used to revert the screen’s appearance.
A New Home
Although it’s among the more basic pranks on the list, never underestimate the comedic value of changing an unsuspecting co-worker’s homepage to something silly. While the process of re-assigning a homepage varies slightly among browsers, it can be accomplished by visiting “General” in the preference menus of Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. As Rickrolling has been a bit played out, may we suggest surprising your victim with a hearty dose of Billy Ocean? —remember to crank the speakers!