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Easter egg in software
Easter egg in software

No I haven't gone mad and got my calendar wrong I really am talking about Easter Eggs. But not the nice chocolate type we get here in the UK or the painted bird eggs more common in the USA.

Instead I'm talking about the hidden, often undocumented, commands buried inside software, dvd and even web sites.

Usually they are just an exercise in a talented programmer having a joke at their boss, but sometimes they can provide extra and useful functions.

And sometimes they strip a joomla designer naked!!

There are whole websites dedicated to the discovery of Easter Eggs but these are some of my all time favourites.

Some you may know but others are probably new to you.

The Skype Cat

In any skype chat window hold down the letters C A T and watch a pussy cat appear next to your name.

The Skype Pencil

In any skype chat window hold down the letters and watch as a pencil is broken next to your name.

The Skype Emoticon

Skype has more emoticons available to you than just the ones that it shows you. Try typing the following in any skype chat window.(finger) (bandit) (mooning) (swear) (drunk) (rock) (poolparty) (bug) (ninja) (smoking) (fubar) (tmi)

The Firefox Robot

In the address bar type about:robots and don't forget to click on the buttons

The Firefox Devil

In the address bar type about:mozilla

The Yahoo Yodel

Yahoo.com ran a very successful advertising campaign featuring a high pitched yodel. You can still hear it if you click on the ! on the logo at www.yahoo.com

The PHP pencil nose (or dog)

On any server running php 4 add ?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42 to any url. usualy you will see a picture of one of the PHP developers with pencils stuck up his nose but on April 1st you see his dog

Open Office Star Wars

Bored at work and the boss wont let you install games on your PC. Play Star Wars inside OpenOffice.org instead. Enter this formula in a cell =game() and then enter =GAME("StarWars")

Naked Joomla

Ever wanted to see the great joomla template designers naked?

 

 

 

 

 

You can do this on any Joomla site by appending ?template=naked to the url.

If you have found an Easter Egg  of your own buried in a web site or application please share it below.

J o o m l a !

Brian Teeman

Brian Teeman

Who is Brian?

As a co-founder of Joomla! and OpenSourceMatters Inc I've never been known to be lacking an opinion or being too afraid to express it.

Despite what some people might think I'm a shy and modest man who doesn't like to blow his own trumpet or boast about achievements.

Where is Brian?