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A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob Desktop
After reading this hint about the Exposé blob, and after messing with the size of the blob, I thought of a devious little prank to pull on an unsuspecting person.

Before enabling the Exposé blob, go into /System -> Library -> Core Services, and control click on Dock, and choose Show Package contents. Then open Contents -> Resources, and replace the file wvousfloat.png with a picture of your hard drive icon (using the same name), and replace wvousfloatselected.png with a picture of your hard drive icon when the drive is selected (using the same name). Then, enable the Exposé blob by following the previously mentioned hint. Finally, drag the hard-drive-shaped blob over the hard drive icon on your desktop. Now ask a friend to help diagnose the problem with your desktop hard drive icon...

[robg adds: Yea, it's a useless but simple, fun, and harmless trick for a slow winter Friday. And not too hard to diagnose and 'fix,' either, as you can drag the Exposé blob around quite easily...]
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A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob | 8 comments | Create New Account
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A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob
Authored by: hypertelia on Dec 03, '04 10:34:21AM

along a similar vein, it's always fun to replace someone's desktop backround, with a screen grab of the desktop itself. it'll be 'invisible' till the desktop changes, (disk's mounted, files added etc), then they try interacting with the fake desktop.

[insert evil cackle here]



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A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob
Authored by: landis on Dec 03, '04 02:11:36PM

You people are SICK!

I love it.



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A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob
Authored by: hafman on Dec 03, '04 02:25:54PM

... and then we finish High School....



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One-upped - A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob
Authored by: Thom on Dec 03, '04 03:42:18PM

I used to help teach a computer summer camp for jr high / high school kids at my old job (at a University). We taught them photoshop, illustrator, Director, etc.

At one point, I helped them make a Director full-screen projector which hid the cursor... had a fake cursor, stuck in the middle of the screen...

...and moving the (invisible) cursor brought the entire background image (of the desktop) with it. :)

It was priceless. Imagine someone sitting down at their workstation after lunch, moving the cursor, and everything BUT the cursor moves...



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One-upped - A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob
Authored by: markwlewis on Dec 03, '04 08:46:43PM

My favorite under OS9 was this: Take a copy of the alert sound out of the system folder. The QUACK worked well. Change the icon of the sound file to the icon of the hard drive. Rename the sound the name of the hard drive with a couple of spaces before and after it so it is differently named. Then, the trick: If you hold down CMD on OS9 and drag the icon near the hard drive icon. It will "snap" to the HD's position, not go into it. It will wind up ON TOP of the HD icon! So when the person double clicks the HD, all they get is "Quack!" The success of the prank is measured in the number of restarts the victim does!

Under 10 sound files no longer play on a double click.....darn.



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One-upped - A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob
Authored by: GlowingApple on Dec 04, '04 02:06:40PM

Well, I'm not sure how to drag an icon on top of another without moving the icon into the other, but for playing sounds, use a program called PlaySound (http://microcosmsoftware.com/playsound/). It will play almost any sound on open. Just set your sounds to open with this program and you're set.

---
Jayson

When Microsoft asks you, "Where do you want to go today?" tell them "Apple."



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External Harddrives are even easier.
Authored by: jason mark on Dec 05, '04 08:25:24PM

About 10 years ago when I was at UMass, we had someone who had bought his own hard drive like $500, and was constantly bragging that he had 200megs of storage (or whatever).

So as a prank we wrote a little application in Director (although I suppose Applescript would work just as well) that would Shut Down the computer when run. We took his custom icon from his hard drive (Elvis) and put it on the application. Then we unplugged the hard drive from the machine (low tech, but it works) and waited for him to sit down.

Boy did he freek out when he though his brand new hard drive was fried, along with his last 3 months of work! We even thought ahead and warned the tech guys at the CS department, so they were able to keep a straight face when saying things like "Yeah, looks like it's shot. I've seen this before, and there's nothing we can do".



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A simple prank to pull using the Exposé blob
Authored by: boredzo on Dec 08, '04 03:28:07AM
Then open Contents -> Resources, and replace the file wvousfloat.png with a picture of your hard drive icon (using the same name), and replace wvousfloatselected.png with a picture of your hard drive icon when the drive is selected (using the same name).

an easy way to do this is with my application IconGrabber. specify 'hdsk' as the file type (leave the creator blank). there's a 'Selected' checkbox so you can easily render the selected version.

http://boredzo.fourx.org/icongrabber



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