If you have been checking the tech blogs lately you might have come across a lot of easter eggs posts. First lifehacker did a Software Easter Eggs post, then today Webware has combined a list of 10 internet easter eggs.
What are easter eggs anyways? To the first timers it may seem what the hell are you guys talking about! Well to clear off the dust and demystify "Easter Eggs" let me mention that Easter Eggs are little amusing tidbits that the creators of the softwares, games etc leave in their products for the users to discover them. They may range from a "Hello" to a Game of Tetris in µtorrent!
Since it is the Easter Eggs Year (I made this up!), I thought I should also contribute and add some of the Easter eggs that I know about :), So here I go:
- The Google Reader Ninja Code ( ↑↑↓↓← → ← → B A), displays a Ninja in the Sidebar (Also mentioned in the Webware list)
- The Photoshop Merlin: Hold the Alt Key, go to the layer pallete and click the arrow for layer pallete menu and choose "pallete options"
- The Firefox 3 Robot: Type about:robots in Firefox 3 address bar
- XP Star Wars: Type TELNET at command prompt, hit enter, then type the letter o and hit enter again, then type towel.blinkenlights.nl and press enter.
- Illustrator Credits: Press CTRL, ALT and click on the Venus picture on the top of the toolbar.
- XP Solitaire instant win: press ALT + SHIFT + 2
- Minesweeper Trick: Type xyzzy and press SHIFT+ENTER, now the topleft pixel of the screen will change color when you hover over a mine!
- Yahoo and Skype hidden emoticons: for skype type – (mooning) (finger) (bandit) (toivo) to get the respective emoticons and for yahoo see here
- OpenOffice.org Calc games: Type =Game(“StarWars”) and hit enter or in a cell outside of the range A1:C3 type =Game(A1:C3;”TicTacToe”)and hit enter
There were more.. I wasted enough time thinking about them, so let it be these only for the time being, I will add more when I remember them. Meanwhile why don’t you guys tell me a few in comments?
Varun Kashyap's TechCrazy Blog 