GoonanismA Sporadic mix of the personal, political and programming

It’s after mid-day so I’m probably a little late here, but Wired have pulled together their top ten April Fools’ Day pranks for Nerds:

5. Change the Language Settings on Google When a co-worker leaves her computer unattended for a minute, quickly go to Google’s home page and click on “Preferences.” There, you can choose the interface language of the search engine. Klingon, Hacker and Yiddish are all excellent choices, but Elmer Fudd is our personal favorite. As Elmer, you can use the Google Diwectowy, perform a Google Seawch or find out if you’re ‘feewing wucky.’

You’ll be amazed how few people realize you can do this. The change-the-language trick also works well on cellphones.

6. The BlueScreen of Death ScreensaverThe BlueScreen of Death error in Windows has driven lots of users to the fringe of computer homicide. Tap into the river of pain by installing the BlueScreen of Death Screensaver on a friend’s machine. It’s available at Microsoft’s IT website Technet, but there are several others out there. Just make sure it doesn’t have a real virus.

What’s likely to happen? The victim will reboot his machine by hitting the restart button. Hopefully, they didn’t save their work!

7. Splitting Monitor CablesThis is one even software geeks won’t easily figure out. Open up their monitor cable (don’t worry, it’s safe) and wire the RGB lines to different colors — this will totally warp the image on the screen. Everyone will assume it’s a software problem. You’re so clever. You can thank us later.

More here.