I have recently moved into a suite of serviced offices. I used to work from home but didn’t find it practical (too many distractions).
Well, what I hadn’t figured on was the two desks opposite mine are both manned by ‘Super Geeks’. You know the type classic computer nerds, but when all is said and done, very funny guys.
Here is a list of the sort of things that they keep doing to my computer whenever I leave the office for a short while.
We start with one sure to throw off even the most sophisticated Windows user. Setup is straightforward and you need only a few seconds alone on someone’s computer. When you get a chance, slip over and right-click your pal’s icon to Internet Explorer or some other commonly used program. Edit the properties and change the target to: ‘%windir%system32shutdown.exe -r -t 00.’ Now, every time your friend tries to run Internet Explorer, his machine will inexplicably restart and your laughter will be an instant result of this.
A classic computer hoax never goes out of fashion in serviced offices. The desktop image trick has been around for a bit, but rest assured there are plenty of unwary victims still to be found.
Just head over to an unattended computer, minimize all the windows, and hit the Print Screen key. Paste the captured image into any graphic editing program, then save the file and set it as the desktop background. All you have to do is hide the actual icons on the desktop, put them in a folder somewhere and your victim will try endlessly to click the nonexistent icons, which are actually just part of the background image.
So, if you are working from home and thinking of moving to a serviced office or hot-desk style office. I would advise you be aware that there can also be major distractions in these offices. I think that I’ll go back to working from home.
