In this article, I’m going to show you how you can create your own little Windows script that will run on just about any modern Windows computer. All you have to do is open up Notepad, type up this script, save it as a .wsf file and then have your friends open up the file. The script will automatically open up Notepad and then start typing – complete with typewriter sound effects – just like the computer itself is possessed by a typing ghost.

The real beauty of this little script is how creative you are with launching it. Insert it into the computer’s startup folder so it launches when the computer starts, or replace one of their favorite desktop shortcuts to link to your file instead of their application!

Scripting A Possessed Typing Computer

The idea for this came from an experience at college, when I walked past a professor’s office and saw that he had an old DOS computer that was typing all by itself. He was a Computer Science professor, and he’d clearly written a DOS program that could type all by itself, complete with sound effects, pauses and everything. Very authentic. In this article, you’re going to do the same thing, just with Windows and using VB Script to accomplish the job. I’ll walk you through the process.

First step – download a typewriter WAV file from any of your favorite free WAV file websites.

Preferably download one that lasts from 30 seconds to a minute, depending on how much text you want your phantom app to type on the screen by itself. Save the file to c:/windows/Media/ with the rest of the Windows sound files so it’ll be easy to find later.

Next, open up a text file and save it as a .wsf file. In my case I called it “phantomtype.wsf“. Declare all of the required variables, set up your text file link and then type the text that you want your typing ghost app to type on the screen.

<job>
<script language="VBScript">
Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next

Dim NoteShell
Dim SoundShell
Dim strText
Dim intTextLen
Dim x
Dim intPause
Dim strTempText

strSoundFile = "C:\Windows\Media\typewriter1.wav"

strText = "Hello. My name is Ryan. I have possessed your computer

and there is nothing you can do about it. Of course, I suppose you

can always close the window if you want to, but that wouldn't be any fun!"

Pretty simple so far right? The two “Shell” variables are basically the shell commands that are going to launch Notepad and your sound file. The phantom typing will come from your script sending keystrokes to the Notepad app behind the scenes. Accomplishing that is easy – you just use “CreateObject” to set up your two application objects, and then launch each app, waiting a tiny bit between each launch.

Set NoteShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set SoundShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

NoteShell.Run "notepad"
WScript.Sleep 1000

SoundShell.Run "C:\Windows\Media\typewriter1.wav", 0, True
WScript.Sleep 500

Now, the victim will see Notepad pop up on the screen, and after a second, the typewriter typing sound will start. At that moment, you will start sending ghostly text to the screen, just like someone is sitting there typing. Here’s how that part works.

intTextLen = Len(strText)
intPause = 100

For x = 1 to intTextLen
	strTempText = Mid(strText,x,1)
	NoteShell.SendKeys strTempText

	WScript.Sleep intPause

	If intPause <= 500 Then
		intPause = intPause + 100
	Else
		intPause = 100
	End If
Next

This may look complicated, but don’t worry, it’s not at all. The first line checks the length of the long string of text that you typed up at the start of this program. That’s the text that you want to magically appear – one letter at a time – on the screen. The next line creates a starting pause (a tenth of a second) between each typed letter.

The For loop that you see below that basically starts at position 1, extracts a single letter from your text, sends that letter to Notepad, and then waits a little bit before moving forward to the next letter in your text. Pretty cool huh?

And to keep things authentic, the little “IF” statement keeps adding and subtracting pause time between typed letters to make the whole thing look really authentic, like someone is sitting right there typing.

Now close up the script.

WScript.Quit
</script>
</job>

Save the file again – making sure you’ve got the “wsf” extension – and you’re done. Double click the file and check out your haunted computer!

Here’s my script in action (I wish you could hear the typing sounds, it’s a riot!)

Like most programs, it could use a little perfecting if you’re up to it. The sound file needs to match the amount of time it takes for the typing to finish. Or, you could loop both the typing and the sound, but you’ll need to come up with a way to let the person close the typing ghost application. If you don’t, the “sendkeys” will just continue typing no matter what window they open…which, is actually a pretty funny virus-like behavior, but not something that I would recommend you do to your friends.

So give this creepy little script a try and let us know what your friends thought about it. Did you come up with any other ways to perfect it? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Image Credit : Shutterstock

Today I’ve found 5 YouTube videos that contain a total of 14 pranks that you could play on your friends. These videos were among the top videos on search results when using different keywords, so they are indeed popular.

Office Pranks

Everyone loves a good office prank, right? Well here are five of them to help you come up with some ideas. Personally, I like the YouTube prank with the car, and the scary image popping up on the woman’s monitor while she was slacking. It’s a great way to poke some fun at them while reminding them that they need to go back to work. As for the other pranks in this video, I’ll just let you watch them.

The Hand-in-Warm-Water Prank

If you haven’t yet heard of the hand in warm water prank, you’ve definitely been missing out on some YouTube goodness. While the validity of this type of prank is still disputed, that doesn’t stop more videos from appearing. This video isn’t an amateur video but instead somewhat professionally made in terms of YouTube videos, but you should still understand the jist of the joke, aside from the pants side-story. Simply put, it is believed that if you fill a bowl with warm water (not hot, not cold) and place a sleeping person’s hand into the water-filled bowl, that person will then being to urinate themselves. Personally, I doubt that it really works, but it’s fun to watch and you could always try it out yourself and then tell the whole world the truth.

Scary Login Sound

For some reason, I like this one a lot despite it’s simplicity. Maybe because of how unsuspecting the person is, but I still like it. To sum it up, while someone else is logged into their computer but are actually someplace else, you go into their settings and change the login sound to something much more frightening than the default. Then save, turn up the volume wherever you can, and log out. Now just wait until your prey returns to their computer, and wha la!

Random Public Pranks

In this video, 6 total pranks that people do in public are presented. I do have to admit that some of them are quite nasty, and I highly recommend that you don’t do that for simple reasons of hygiene. I actually don’t have much to say about this video except to “watch and learn”, I suppose. Oh, and do pay attention to the person making all the comments, for he does make things a lot funnier than the video itself.

Win $500,000!

Remember when I said that you can play any of these pranks on your friends? Well, I lied. Unless you have some pretty awesome connections, I highly doubt you’ll be able to pull this one off, but if you can, then congratulations! Even if you can’t, you can still laugh over what did happen in the video, and maybe you can adjust some of the ideas in this prank to make one of your own. I’m sure your creative side will make you proud.

As always, there are much more pranks out there on YouTube that may just not be that popular but still funny to you and your friends. Just keep searching until you find the perfect one. If you need something anyone can do, here’s my favorite that I did during April Fool’s Day many years ago:

If your kitchen sink has one of those extra hoses that you can pull out and more efficiently wash dishes with, then simply put a rubber band around it so that the handle is pressed in. Then, whenever someone comes to use the sink, instead of water coming from the faucet onto the dishes, it’ll be sprayed directly towards the person you’re tricking out. I’m absolutely sure they’ll be happy with a wet shirt or face.

For more ideas, you can also check out our long list of articles, all about pranks!

What’s your favorite YouTube prank? What do you like most about it? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

If that wasn’t enough, John wrote about prank news story websites, and now I’d like to cover 4 free April Fools prank ideas with small applications you can use to really fool your friends or family members. I’ve tested each of these programs, and as far as I can tell they are perfectly safe and very fun methods to prank your friends this April Fools.

Change Your Voice for a Funny Phone Call

Have you ever considered calling a friend and pretending to be an IRS agent or maybe a long lost relative? Maybe you would like to tell your friend that an unknown uncle died and left them millions? Your friend would easily recognize your voice. So, the best option is to use free voice changing software, and then dial out using your computer and your favorite VoIP application. Never fear! The perfect free voice-changing application is here, and it’s called Screaming Bee MorphVOX Junior.

This software is very fast and easy to set up. It sits between your microphone and any application you use and morphs your voice in whatever way you configure it to. The free version allows you to use an alternative male or female voice, or for a funny alternative, you can raise the level of your voice to sound like a tiny person! Another fun feature is the fact that you can click and insert sound effects into the call, such as a cuckoo clock, a drum roll (like after telling a joke), an alarm clock  or a screeching sound.

Strange Windows Errors

If you share a computer with a friend or with family members, and you really want to play a funny joke on other people who use the computer often, you can install the little Dr. Windows app offered by DonationCoder. This application gets installed into the apps menu, and appears as just a small antivirus application called “Dr. Windows.” In reality, it’s counting down the minutes to when it delivers one of the strange error messages that you’ve set up.

Once you install the application, it appears in the system tray as a very small anti-virus application. Any user who isn’t very tech savvy should completely ignore it. When you first install it, right click on the icon and click on Options.

Make sure to enable “Hide Options” so that when the user right clicks on the icon, nothing will happen. The only way to enter settings is to hold down the Ctrl key while right-clicking. The software comes with about 50 random Windows error messages that pup up either when you trigger them with the hotkey combination, or at a set interval that you enter.

The messages are fairly random and all pretty funny. If you have anyone using the computer who is just completely non tech-savvy at all, these will really throw them for a loop. Just sit back and watch them panic and pull out their hair in frustration…just try not to snicker too loudly!

Install a Small Fake Virus

We certainly spend a lot of time here at MakeUseOf focused on helping people avoid or get rid of viruses, adware and spyware on their computer. However, in the spirit of April 1st, I’d like to propose a safe and very funny application called Lappet. Lappet is a completely safe and very funny fake computer virus that will inflict terror into the heart of just about any computer user who doesn’t know any better.

The reason I write that it would scare anyone who doesn’t know any better is because most of the savvy MUO readers would instantly recognize the progress bar as a very non-standard Windows app (what’s up with that horrid green color). But I’m sure many of you know someone who would completely fall for it.

Once the hard drive is “erased,” Windows crashes. Mind you – the app takes a screenshot and uses it as the background so that it appears the entire computer froze. The user may try clicking around, but almost nothing will work (there is the secret of simply pressing the “up” key to escape though).

Finally, the very last window reveals the truth – that the entire episode was just a funny gag. The application doesn’t require any kind of install, it’s just an executable, so you can deliver it to your friend in whatever format works best – an email, a download from your website or blog or anything else that gets them to run it.

Install a Very Scary Fake Computer Virus

Another great computer prank you can use on your friends this April 1st is a full scale computer virus, packaged up as a promotion for real antivirus software. It’s actually a somewhat realistic fake virus called Ultimate, which first asks if you really want to delete the Windows folder (it doesn’t matter what the user clicks, or whether they even click anything at all!)

Before you know it, the next screen comes up that shows sections of Windows Explorer literally getting “deleted” and turning into black space. To the savvy user, this animation looks a little bit cheesy. But to the standard or amateur user, it could come across as convincing enough.

Finally, once all contents of the Windows folder are deleted, the entire screen goes completely blank and stays that way, just long enough for the user’s heart to stop beating for a few moments. Then, very slowly, the following message prints across the screen.

After a few more keystrokes, the application closes and the user returns to their normal screen. This is also delivered in the form of a simple executable. If you can’t get your friends or family to run it from an email, you can always install it in the Startup folder on the computer of an unsuspecting friend of family member.

Do you know of any safe and scary or funny computer pranks that might come in handy for other MakeUseOf readers this April Fools? Share your own ideas for free April Fools prank ideas in the comments section below.

Unfortunately, we all do not have the time or resources for such endeavors. Therefore, most people focus on small pranks between friends to get our fill of shenanigans.

Computer pranks are the easiest and one of the most fun small scale pranks. Getting on someone’s computer and changing their background, messing with their desktop, or changing their homepage can lead to a good laugh, granted the person is a good sport.

But getting onto someone’s computer when they are not around can be a tall task.  Most people have passwords on their machines, thwarting any would-be pranksters.

Well, this problem can be solved with a small tool called KON-BOOT. Rather than cracking a Windows password, KON-BOOT bypasses it and lets you into the computer without typing one in. Then, when you restart, everything is back to normal, that is, everything you didn’t change for the computer prank.

Editor’s note: MakeUseOf does not encourage using this tool for malicious purposes.

To get KON-BOOT, go to their website here.

Scroll down to the following for the download that will boot Windows.

Download either the CD ISO or floppy image. For most uses, the CD will be just fine.

You will have to unzip the downloaded file and then burn the CD image or copy the floppy Image. After that is done, you are ready to start the pranking fun.

Wait until a friend leaves his computer and make sure you have enough time to get the deed done. Pop in the CD and turn on the computer, making sure you boot from the CD.  This may require you to hit F12 at the BIOS screen and choose to boot from the CD.  You’ll know you’re there when you see the following.

At any time, hit Enter and you should see an ASCII art logo draw onto the screen and a few loading dialogs that should look something like this.

The computer should then boot Windows and, if everything worked, you shouldn’t be prompted for a password.  Now you’re ready to do your computer prank.

For good-hearted jokes, I’d advise not doing anything devastating like messing with the system registry or files.

My favorite is to do a screen shot of the desktop (Justin also had it listed in his article Four Funny Ways To Prank Your Parents With The Family Computer).  Open Paint, paste the screenshot, save it, and set it as the desktop background.  Then hide the task bar and icons.  An unsuspecting victim will think their computer has frozen.

You could also set the desktop background to a blue screen while hiding the taskbar and icons.

Both of these usually freak out the victim, but are easily reversible, so no harm is done.

After you’ve finished your dirty deeds, you can just take out your disk and reboot the computer.  It will boot as normal, with your playful changes waiting to be discovered.

KON-BOOT is a powerful tool and should be used with discretion.  Clearly, it could be used for malicious purposes, but no one like a malicious person.

A computer prank like the one described above though can lead to a good laugh.  If your victim is a good sport, hopefully you’ll both be laughing about it!

I should mention that KON-BOOT also works with some Linux distributions, but the process is a little more involved than with Windows.  To find those steps, refer to the KON-BOOT website.

Go off, trick your friend, have fun, and stay out of trouble!

Know any other good cyber-prank tools?  Let us know in the comments below.

If you have friends that live too far away to literally play a practical joke on them, you could send them an email instead. Here is a list of 6 scary emails to send to friends.

Scary Stories

Do you know someone who is scared easily? Then you don’t have to come up with anything smart, you can simply send them a scary story just in time for bedtime. Maybe spice it up by adding some pictures or by sending it anonymously. Scary For Kids has a neat collection of scary stories.

Dead Fake

Dead Fake is a service that lets you send anonymous emails. That alone is not a prank. The thing with this site is that you can make your email appear to come from anyone you choose. Do I need to say more?

You could pretend to be your friend’s boss or a government official and I’m sure you can come up with content that will scare your friend. After all, you know them best!

If you’re short of ideas, check out this Prank Ideas site.

Fright Gauge

Do you have a friend who is very proud of their “visual acuity”? Send them this “Find the Fiend” gauge to reveal how well their eyesight is. It will show them just how much higher-than-average their perception skills really are.

A similar page better suited for a younger audience is Where’s Waldo.

Online Hearing Test

For this one to work, you have to embed the code on a website or one of your social network profiles and then send your friend the link. Unfortunately, the source website gives quite a few clues to this being a fake test. However, if you manage to set this up somewhere, it’s one of the most scary tests to email a friend. Fortunately, the code to embed the test is included.

A similar test is Color Vision Deficiency.

Driver’s License Search

This is a website prank. The site claims that the National Motor Vehicle License Organization is now required by law to provide public access to all US driver’s licenses online. It’s the perfect prank to play on someone who has been refusing to show you their passport or driver’s license with the claim that their picture was so ugly. You can now tell them how shocked you were by how ugly their photo really was.

WOT warns that this page has a poor reputation. Well, does it really surprise you?

The Dexter Hit List

If you want to scare someone in the UK, take advantage of this ingenious video generator. Be sure to enter your victim’s full name, their real age range, an actual occupation, and a real characteristic of them into the form.

Your friend will receive a link to icetruck.tv, a video webpage. The video is that of a press conference in which a serial murder is described with hints to potential future victims. At the end of the video the prank is revealed, so no reasons to worry.

The preview for the video did not work for me, the link that is emailed, however, worked perfectly.

Do you want to remain anonymous when sending scary emails to friends?

• Simon showed you How To Send Completely Anonymous Emails

Are you looking for more scary stuff? Here is some material for you:

• Ryan found the Top 5 Sites With Scary Stuff That Makes You Jump
• I gathered up the Top 5 Spooky Websites That Will Keep You Awake At Night
• Sharninder listed the Top 6 Sites To Watch Horror Movies Online for Free

If, however, you’re looking for more pranks to play, check out these articles:

• Justin described Four Funny Ways To Prank Your Parents With The Family Computer
• John wrote about the Top 3 Fake News Prank Story Generators
• Simon explained Two Great’n Simple Nerdy Office Pranks to Play On Friends
• Ryan has written about 4 Really Popular Prank Call Websites & How They Work
• I compiled a list of 20+ Prank Phone Numbers To Hand To A Bad Date

What is the best prank you ever played on someone?

Image credits: svilen001

People will catch on, however (well, hopefully). You could try searching for similar parody sources in our Top 10 Websites for Fake News & Satire, but it eventually becomes a prank that can only be pulled on easy targets like your grandparents or technologically unsavvy parents.

How about a way to create your own fake news prank headlines? With the ability to add a little personal touch by customizing names and stories, you can make your article more believable or outrageous with fake news story generators. Here’s the three best ones.

WasArrested

WasArrested is one of the best websites to create your own fake news prank story. It’s very simple and quick to do. Start off by typing in the victim’s name, city, and gender.

Then comes the fun part of choosing which story you want. You can select anything from “Has Sex With Sheep” to “Drinks From The Toilet.” If you don’t see a story you like, you can write one up yourself and even upload an image to go along with the article.

The website will create a link for your fake news prank and you can start sending the URL to anyone you please.

There it is. According to what looks like CNN’s site, I was arrested for indecent exposure! Looks pretty legitimate to me.

FakeAWish

FakeAWish is sort of the celebrity version of WasArrested. First, simply type in the first and last name of any star of your choice. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings (I know, I know), so I took it upon myself to use my own name again.

As for the stories you can pick, most of them don’t look too good for your celebrity target, ranging from missing, hospitalized, or just dead. What have I gotten myself into this time?

The end result is an article on what looks like a classic Yahoo! News page with the story you selected. In this case, some news agency called Global Associated News is reporting that I’m presumed dead in a private plane crash. Can’t they get anything right?

Fodey

If you’re looking to create a fake newspaper clipping, head over to Fodey. Just think up of a completely made-up story and have it look like it was published on some newspaper’s front page.

It’s really easy to do. Type in name of the newspaper, the date, and start entering in whatever news article you can come up with.

Once you’ve generated the newspaper clipping, you can preview it and download the image.

There you have it. It’s 2036, MakeUseOf is now a newspaper, and Google is taking over the world. Huh.

Looking for more fun? MUO’s Directory of Apps has got details on DeadFake, a fake email service, and HoaxCall, an online prank call maker.

Go ahead and try out the fake news story generators for yourself. Are any of them crowd pleasers? Let us know in the comments.