. . . And Other April Foolery
All right, I'll just tell you up front: The Microsoft Exchange Server team is having a little fun in honor of April Fool's Day. Unless, that is, you choose to believe that they would remove Exchange management capability completely from the local machine and make the primary admin interface the Microsoft Surface, which will now be included out of the (pallet-sized) box. Oh, and apparently Clippy is going to walk you through your administrative tasks—unless you prefer the kitten, puppy, or big-eyed deer. You can read all the ridiculous details on the Exchange Team Blog.
Naturally, this isn't the only prank going around today. Perhaps you've seen the announcement by the Guardian that they're abandoning print publication in favor of using Twitter exclusively. Some good larfs there. Google announced CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity), which they've integrated into Gmail and Google Docs. And CADIE has her own—very annoying—web page, too. You should definitely turn your volume all the way up and visit that page.
For the travel-minded, you can save $3 trillion dollars on flights to Mars through Expedia, but only if you book today. As the web page says, "in this economy, you can't afford NOT to go!" They've got links to hotels and activities on Mars; I'm thinking Super Low-G Martian Arts could be fun.
Probably my favorite one comes from a press release we received here at Windows IT Pro from ElcomSoft, a Moscow-based password-recovery software company. They're introducing a Password Recovery Tambourine, "a supernatural amulet to recover lost passwords with a 100% guarantee." But you'll have to go through extensive training to learn spells in Yakutian and over 200 ritual dances that are guaranteed to make you look stupid. Sounds fun, right?
There's ton's more pranks out there if you but look around. You can get an extensive list at April Fools' Day On The Web, which covers web pranks going back to 2004.
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