I read in my bathroom reader that the top three "problem" employees according to the
Wall Street Journal are: "The Non-Stop Talker" "The Screamer" and the "The Practical Joker." I guess that makes me a problem employee then. I don't scream as much I as used to, but I do play practical jokes when appropriate (hehe). Recently we had one of our programmers give his two weeks notice, and because he's a good natured guy (and he's quitting) -- I thought it would be appropriate to give him hell this week. Seeing as I'm a developer, my pranks tend to leverage my aptitude/proclivity for system intrusion and wreaking random havoc. So today (Monday) I decided that I would make a program that hooks his keyboard input and types a predefined, yet configurable, amount of text -- no matter what keys he presses (ex. type "0123456789" and the output is "I love ham"). Hence -- the KeyFlipper program which leverages the KeyboardHooker library. The KeyboardHooker library exposes a KeyboardListener class that can be used to log keystrokes or stop them. The library also exposes the KeyInterceptor class which does all the "real" work required to torture said co-worker(s). This program also goes in the largely useless bin...but seeing the look of joy on his precious little face more than makes up for it. Tomorrow (Tuesday) will feature something similar involving hooking the mouse. Ahhh....I can't wait until tomorrow.
KeyFlipper (requires KeyboardHooker)
KeyboardHooker