Luke Skywalker has The Force. Spiderman has Spidey Sense. Wolverine has Primal Instincts. And IT Pros? Well, they too have something that makes them unique and amazing: IT Hacks!
Last month, we asked you to share your favorite IT hack. As we had hoped, the response was great. Thank you to everyone who participated.
Our original plan was to highlight a few of the best IT hacks. But we ran into a problem: they were all incredible! And so, we decided to highlight all of them in one Master List (which we will update if any more responses are posted on our blog/Spiceworks page).
THE MASTER LIST OF IT HACKS
- Type "shutdown /r /t<number in="" seconds=""> " to reboot a virtual machine where the shutdown/reboot button is disabled. (Suggested by Ron)
- Use PowerShell to inject into a NAV/BC database that you don’t have access to. (Suggested by Ron)
- Type data:text/html, <html contenteditable=""> into Chrome to turn it into a notepad. (Suggested by Kristen Beck)
- Play the offline dinosaur game hidden inside Google chrome by pressing the space bar. (Suggested by Germano Saffier)
- Reveal a WiFi password connected to your device by typing password.netsh wlan show profile name=”_name_” key=clear. (Suggested by Matt)
- Type "Google pacman" in Google search to play PacMan. (Suggested by Philippe Nault and Matt)
- Use RDM to auto load VPN connection into remote servers. (Suggested by Anders Lund and FFournier)
- While typing in Windows, hit Windows Key + . (period) to open a searchable emoji keyboard. (Suggested by Doug)
- Find a user name using SQL injection with ' OR EXISTS(SELECT * FROM users WHERE name='jake' AND password LIKE '%w%') AND ''=' (Suggested by Shiam Beeharry)
- Hold control+shift and click on a running window in the task bar to open another instance of that app as administrator. (Suggested by Chris Thibeau)
- From the Windows command line, open a file in the default program that is associated with it by typing the filename and hitting enter. (Suggested by Eric Nail)
- Type explorer from any subdirectory while using the command line to open it in the File Explorer already in that subdirectory. (Suggested by Eric Nail)
- Run cipher /w:driveletter:\foldername from the Command Prompt to ensure permanent deletion of files in that folder. (Suggested by Angie Montgomery)
- Save Excel files as .XLSB to compress them by up to 75(Suggested by Angie Montgomery)
Ben Liebowitz also shared a link to a nice article that features some useful IT hacks — check it out here: https://learning.linkedin.com/blog/tech-tips/9-simple-computer-hacks-that-are-legitimately-useful. We also loved Cary Wagner’s recommendation of using old CD-ROMs as cup holders — and the ultimate, classic hack: when in doubt, CTRL-ALT-DEL to fix anything, anytime, anywhere!!! ;-)
Bonus IT Hack
We especially loved this IT hack from Angie Montgomery and wanted to give it a special mention because we know many of you will enjoy it: run telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl from the Windows command line to watch an ASCII version of Star Wars. (Note: The Telnet Client feature in Windows needs to be enabled for this to work.) Here is what this looks like:
The Winners Are…
First of all, everyone who participated in our poll question is a winner. To those about to geek: we salute you! Now, for the two lucky community members who have each won a $25 Amazon gift card…drum roll please…congratulations to Germano Saffier and Doug! Please email me to claim your prize.
Stay tuned for September’s poll question, which is coming soon!