I don’t like people touching my stuff without permission. At the School of Art, an unspoken rule of respect for property usually holds true enough for you to leave your computer in an unmonitored room for a given period of time and still be able to find it exactly as it was a few hours later. But, maybe you want an extra line of defense.

While working in the communication design field, you’ll probably find yourself working in an office, or a cubicle, or maybe just a large room shared by other creatives. Whatever the case, you’re within roller-chair distance from another creative person. And, sometimes, creatives get bored or burnt out on projects. So their creativity explodes in another way: office pranks.

Maybe you’ll adjust their roller-chair into an awkward seating position; or maybe you just move it to the break room.

One office prank I’ve planned and been subjected to is the couple mil’ folders prank.

1. Hide all the open programs to reveal only the desktop.
2. Shift + Command + N.
3. Fire at will.

To protect yourself from this sort of prank, install Deskshade. It allows you to lock your computer while you’re away, with built-in auto-lock after a specific time period (say, 15 minutes). Another feature is Cover Desktop, which hides your desktop files for a cleaner viewspace.

Also, for the Intel-based computers with built-in cameras, check out iAlertU, software that will sound an alarm and take a snapshot of a thief or prankster.