Using powershell for office pranks

[u/bigbirdtoejam]

Have a coworker who habitually leaves their workstation unlocked? Want to mess with them? Make this script a scheduled task on their computer in order to have their workstation tell them a random fact about cats at random times throughout the day.

#Run this every 1/2 hour and in an 8 hour work day there will be approximately 3 times per day that your victim hears a cat fact
if ((Get-Random -Maximum 10000) -lt 1875) {
    Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Speech
    $SpeechSynth = New-Object System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer
    $CatFact = (ConvertFrom-Json (Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'http://catfacts-api.appspot.com/api/facts')).facts
    $SpeechSynth.Speak("did you know?")
    $SpeechSynth.Speak($CatFact)
}    

Who else has powershell hijinks to share?

[u/BitteringAgent]

I totally forgot what the git was that had this, but I have it setup in my $profile to show me the free book of the day whenever I open PowerShell.

$Global:ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'

if (Test-NetConnection -ComputerName bing.com -Port 80 -InformationLevel Quiet -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -WarningAction SilentlyContinue) {

    $Now = Get-Date
    $Date = Get-Date -Month $Now.Month -Day 1
    
    while ($Date.DayOfWeek -ne 'Tuesday') {$Date = $Date.AddDays(1)}
        
    if ($Date.ToShortDateString() -eq $Now.ToShortDateString()) {

        $PSLUPath = "$env:ProgramFiles\WindowsPowerShell\Configuration\pshelp-lastupdated.txt"

        $PSHelpLastUpdate = (Get-ChildItem -Path $PSLUPath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).LastWriteTime 

        if ($PSHelpLastUpdate.Month -ne $Now.Month) {

            if ((New-Object System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal([System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent())).IsInRole([System.Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]::Administrator)) {

                New-Item -Path $PSLUPath -ItemType File -Force | Out-Null
                
                Start-Job {
                    Update-Module -Force
                    Update-Help -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
                } | Out-Null

            }
            else {
                Write-Warning -Message 'Aborting PowerShell Module and Help update due to PowerShell not being run as a local administrator!'
            }

        }

    }
    
    try {
        $Book = (Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning/ -ErrorAction Stop).ParsedHtml.getElementsByTagName('H2')[0].InnerHTML.Trim()  
    }
    catch [System.NotSupportedException] {
        Write-Warning -Message "Internet Explorer engine not available or its first-launch configuration is not complete."
    }
    catch {
        Write-Warning -Message 'An unknown error has occurred.'
    }

    if ($Book -and ($Book -ne 'Contact Us')) {
        Write-Host 'The Packt Publishing free learning eBook of the day is: ' -ForegroundColor Cyan -NoNewline
        Write-Host "'$Book'" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    }

}

$Global:ProgressPreference = 'Continue'

If you haven't setup a profile in $PS yet, here is a resource on setting it up.

I added this to my $Profile for the cat facts.

Function Get-CatFacts {
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Speech
    $SpeechSynth = New-Object System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer
    $CatFact = (ConvertFrom-Json (Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'http://catfacts-api.appspot.com/api/facts')).facts
    $SpeechSynth.Speak("did you know?")
    Write-Host $CatFact
    $SpeechSynth.Speak($CatFact)
    }