I have long been fascinated with Easter eggs. No, I’m not talking about the ovoid, shiny, decorated, different-colored objects apparently hidden by the Easter Bunny for kids to hunt down during Easter Sunday morning. What I’m referring to are those hidden message, in-joke or feature in an object such as a movie, video game, or computer program. They are the “virtual” Easter eggs.
To better understand what I’m talking about, type this in the address bar of your Mozilla Firefox browser: about:mozilla. The message that appears is an Easter egg. It might differ depending on the version you are using. Mammon refers to those Internet Explorer users. Here’s another one; go to Yahoo’s website. Click on the dot in the exclamation point. You must have a speaker to hear the yodel.
Cool huh? Continue reading for more eggs.
Easter Eggs in Computer Software
Adobe Photoshop 7.0: Hold down Ctrl. Go to Help > About Photoshop. This alternate image appears.
WinAmp: Choose the Modern skin. Stretch the Main Window until the beat analyzer appears. Hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift and click the center of the beat analyzer. Play a song. Enjoy!
Go to Help > About Winamp. Hold down Ctrl. Double click on the llama. Now try to hold down Shift instead of Ctrl. What do you see?
Microsoft Word 2003: Open a new document. Type =rand(200,99). It’s very taxing to type all of that by yourself eh? Hehe.. You can also change the mouse pointer by holding down Ctrl + Alt + + (yes, the plus button).
Easter Eggs in Movies
Fight Club: As you play the CD/DVD, an FBI message appears followed by an Attention message. No one really bothers to read them but if you do, the Warning message is freaky.
The Lion King: In the movie, when Simba is on a cliff, the dust forms the word S*X. And you thought the movie was for kids huh?
The Italian Job: You can see Spiderman twice in the movie. The first time is before the team is going to blow up a street, Spidey is seen talking to some people in the sidewalk. Then, when the bomb goes off, he is seen running with the people. Well, even superheroes can be scared sometimes. 
Stan Lee cameos: The creator of The X-Men and other Marvel superheroes can be seen in some of the movie renditions of his comic books. Most notable appearances were in X-Men, Spiderman, Daredevil, Hulk, Fantastic Four and Iron Man.
Easter Eggs in Video Games
WarCraft III: The game has some of the coolest Easter eggs I have ever seen in a video game. In various stages of the game, you can see a Hydralisk, a Panda and pirates. There are even two peasants named Tyler and Robert from the movie Fight Club.
If you click on the critters repeatedly, they will go “Kaboom!” like a nuclear bomb. Much cooler actually than in the original Warcraft and Starcraft.
If you click on the characters repeatedly, they get annoyed and will say funny or angry phrases.
There’s also a very funny ending credits where you can see a rock concert, a football game and then marines battling some zergs and protoss.
Counter-Strike: Some of the maps have secret rooms most of which can be seen when you are dead and in spectator mode. Can you tell me what maps these images are in? (Images courtesy of CS-Nation).
Solitaire: To win instantly, hold down Shift + Alt + 2.
Easter Eggs in Music
These type of Easter eggs usually appears as hidden or bonus tracks. Backmasking certain songs can also contain some hidden messages which sound like some demon speaking. There are also some Easter eggs hidden in album covers. I can’t find one worth mentioning. Please share here if you find an interesting one.
Easter Eggs in Web Sites
Google: Try to enter these web pages to know how cool people from Google are.
www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/
www.google.com/intl/xx-elmer/
www.google.com/intl/xx-piglatin/
www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/
www.google.com/microsoft/
www.google.com/linux/
www.google.com/unclesam/
Google also has a mirror web site, you can go there by entering the search term elgooG. That’s the word Google backwards. Go to the first site that appeared.
Google even provided an Easter-themed game for us here.
There are still countless Easter eggs waiting out there for you to hunt somewhere. If you hunted one, please share them here ok?
Happy Easter Sunday everybody!
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Tags: easter egg, firefox, games, google, warcraft
April 13th, 2009 at 10:46 am
lol – the yodel was funny on the yahoo website. I didn’t know about that one so thanks. My teacher in high school showed us the word s*x in the lion king video – we were shocked (not really). Thanks for the easter eggs
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April 13th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Interesting elgooG.. It’s my first time I’ve heard about it.
I’ve often encountered Easter eggs in older software but it looks like this practice by the programmer has been abandoned. I guess it was a fad among the developers – a neat trick to challenge their users.
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April 13th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
@Going2Oahu – the word S*X in The Lion King movie actually appeared various times in the film. Of course, Disney executives are quick to deny them. Some said that it looks like SFX.
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April 13th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
@Gem – that’s true. Microsoft programmers actually embed them in many MS programs prior to Windows XP. But they’re now forbidden to do it or else, they will incur Gate’s wrath!
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April 13th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Hey I did not know even those Easter Egg s existed! Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
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April 13th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
@PC Game Trek – I’m glad you found them interesting.
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April 14th, 2009 at 9:57 am
tried the yahoo it was fun c:
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April 14th, 2009 at 10:45 am
nice post ark..tried in Photoshop CS2, ang about screen is space monkey hehe. Very interesting talaga.
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April 14th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Interesting factoids for my non-geeky ears. Highly entertaining. I don’t know developers and programmers are this playful and creative. Well, here’s to the joy of learning something new every day. Lovely.
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April 14th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
@iceah – it’s fun really.
@ianemv – discover ka pa ng iba, I’m sure marami pa.
@jan geronimo – glad you liked it, thanks for the visit.
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April 16th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I have not known about it before. Funny
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ark Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 11:57 am
I’m glad I have taught you a new thing.
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April 21st, 2009 at 11:34 am
Hey ark galing galing nman may sarili k ng domain….Proud to have a friend like you and mareng wendy..God bless to both of you cheers for the coming baby and my inaanak!
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ark Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Nakakatouch ka naman, hehe.. Good luck sa iyo. Regards to William. Gawa na rin kayo agad ng baby, hehe..
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April 22nd, 2009 at 1:24 am
Great post! This is why I love blogging. Always something interesting to read, watch and enjoy. It keeps the mind active. Thanks, Amy x.
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ark Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Please drop by here often. I have more tricks up my sleeve.
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April 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 am
Thank you for your help!
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ark Reply:
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Help from what? If this post had somehow helped you, I’m glad it did.
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July 6th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
google has launched its fancy search
hxxp://www.googleeastereggs.com/
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August 20th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Hi there, this is a cool post.
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April 2nd, 2010 at 10:54 pm
[...] Since Easter Sunday is fast approaching, it must be that people are already preparing for the kid’s Easter egg hunt. [...]
April 24th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
How did u know all of this Ark? thanks!
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ark Reply:
April 25th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
It’s all over the internet. I just compiled those which I experienced myself.
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