20 Steps To A Football Transfer

Bet you didn't know there were twenty steps to a football transfer? Well, to any switch that has the word 'saga' attached, at any rate. Here they are.

Key: We have the player (the player), the 'selling club' (the player's current team) and the interested party (the club where the player will be performing pirhouettes next season for lots and lots of lovely money).

1. Tabloid talk - There's a deadline to be met and our friend from The Sun has been out all night doing all sorts of bold things with girls called Kate from Runcorn. He needs a story, any story, so he scribbles down the names of ten players and the names of ten top European/Premier League clubs, throws them into two separate beanie hats and links the first plausible pair. He hands the story into the subs who siphon out the typos and churn it all into a lovely two-column spread of page 67. Sans quotes, of course, though he may reference a source close to the club. His mother, in other words.

2. The first denial from the player - The player in question tries to inch away from Mr Telly News Reporter, but can't because to do so would be to run the microphone-holding oaf over in his Bentley. Reporter asks question, player says there's nothing in it, drives off, goes golfing.

3. More paper talk, this time quoting the interested party - The interested party's manager says that yes, they are looking to sign new players for certain positions and that yes, if our player becomes available they may look at it. But they won't be held to ransom as their current squad is good enough. But they are looking at options. But they...

4. Denial from the selling club - Step number 3 is all moot as the selling club sees our player as an integral part of their set-up for next season. The player's current manager even wants to build his side around this player, who isn't Danny Higginbotham.

5. Another denial from the player, but he's 'flattered' by the interested party's, ehm, interest - "I'm very happy where I am but when a team of the stature of West Brom* want you, well, any player would be flattered." *Barcelona.

6. Denial from the selling club, saying the player isn't for sale at any price - "The player is a big part of our plans and is not for sale at any price nudge nudge, wink wink."

7. Player criticises current manager/team-mates/fans/climate - Even though the player in question comes from the Norfolk area, he doesn't like it up North/up in Leeds/up 'im.

8. Player is publicly rebuked by his club, possibly fined, exacerbating his keenness to move - They may even fine him for good measure, even though the player in question is not, repeat, not Joey Barton. Barca would never waste their money on that good for nothing piece of...(Ed: Delete delete delete).

9. Interested party makes first, derisory offer. Selling club reiterates stance - Because they're not selling and the public is getting bored. So very bored.

10. Player hands in transfer request, depending on his eagerness to move - On the one hand, he could lose the money from the rest of his contract. On the other hand, he could be forced to play alongside Alan Smith for another season.

11. Selling club rejects request - Because they're not selling and....

12. Player makes harsher criticism of manager/team-mates/fans/climate/all of above - The knives are out now.

13. Interested party ups offer - They smell blood and like the Catalan sharks that they are (by now we're definitely talking about Barcelona, for reasons of specificity) they won't rest until they have their prey togging out in lovely blue and red and torquoise on away days. Or is it mauve?

14. Selling club turn that down, but say that every player has his price - The first decent sign that this transfer might actually go ahead. The public re-register their interest.

15. Player is suddenly happy at current club and doesn't wish to move - The public sit back down because they actually believe, the unwitting fools, that the player will not be boarding the flight to Espana after all. Really, this is just a ploy to drive up the transfer/signing on fee.

16. Interested party pulls out. Then make offer - "We will not be pursuing our interest in the player. Oh wait, we've just found a spare 20 million notes in our dry cleaning. Give us 'im."

17. Selling club accepts offer and says player can talk to interested party - The fans weep. And then wonder who they can buy as a replacement.

18. Personal terms are discussed. Player says nice things about soon to be former manager/team-mates/fans/climate - The hypocrite.

19. Medical - Medical.

20. The player signs for his new club, saying he plans to stay there for life - And our friend from The Sun tells Kate from Runcorn that he was the one who started it all. Kate doesn't care.

"Think of the environment before printing this email" - if your email signature reads like this, you may want to try something different that will actually help someone in some part of the world.

Simply sign-up with Reply for All and choose the cause you want to support - it could be Cancer cure, AIDS prevention, animal rights, children’s rights, global warming, clean water, poverty or education.

When you send an email using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, Reply For All will automatically embed a signature into your message - the sponsor will pay the Reply For All service and that payment will be shared with the cause you may have selected.

The signature is optional so if you don’t like a particular banner in the email, you can easily delete it from your email message just like normal text.

The downside - while you can add signatures in Gmail with a simple drag-n-drop, Reply For All would require you to install a Firefox plugin.

The Credit Crisis Explained in Simple English

All Email Messages in Gmail Have a Permanent Web Address

Do you know that it is possible to bookmark individual email messages of Gmail just like you would bookmark any regular web page.

To experiment, open any Gmail thread in your browser and notice the address bar as it gets updated with a unique URL. That’s the permanent address of your email message and it will stay the same as long as you don’t delete the message from your Gmail mailbox.

Why Bookmark Gmail Messages

This could be a handy alternative to search in Gmail (for accessing important emails quickly) or may be useful in situations where you don’t want to create another tag in Gmail just to remember a couple of important email messages.

You can bookmark Gmail message links in your web browser or save them as private bookmarks in delicious or even add them to your Read It Later list.

There aren’t any security issue because you can only access the email bookmarks if you are logged into your Google Apps or Gmail account.

Thanks Ouriel for the tip.

How to Say ‘No to All’ During File Copy Operations in Windows

I bet you guys did not know this but always thought why this feature wasnt available under windows. The feature i'm talking abt is the one while copying or moving a large number of files from one location to another folder in Windows, you may often encounter errors or warning messages saying the file(s) you are trying to copy already exists in the target location.

Windows XP provides you with four options Yes, Yes to all, No and Cancel. Well most of us tend to press Yes to all thereby wasting time if the content which you are copying has a large number of files and is of a huge size. And you might have wondered how gr8 it would be to have a "No to all" option.

Well incidentally windows provides you with the No to all option. Though there’s no "No to All" button in the File Replacement dialog but you can simply hold down the Shift Key before pressing the No button and Windows will automatically interpret this action as a "No to All" command.

This will be so useful when you are copying a large number of files and folders but don’t want to overwrite content that already exists at the target.

I know this might be an eye opener to most of you it certainly was for me.

Adobe PDF Guide: Get things done

Adobe PDF is the best format for sharing documents because they are compact, the formatting is preserved and most computers / mobile devices / ebook readers can easily handle PDF files.

Here you’ll learn how to do just about everything with PDF documents without buying Adobe Acrobat. You can edit PDF files, combine multiple files as one, add signature images to PDF pages, fill PDF forms online, add clickable hyperlinks to existing PDF documents and so much more.

Adobe PDF Guide and Tutorial

Q: First things first - How do I create PDF documents on my computer without Adobe Acrobat?

A: Get a copy of DoPDF - it installs as a virtual printer driver on your desktop just like Acrobat and lets you print PDF files from any Windows application including images, documents, emails, websites, etc.

Q: I don’t want to install software just for converting a bunch of documents to PDF. Do you know of any alternative?

A: Upload your documents to Google Docs via the browser and then export them as PDF files. Simple.

Q: A client just sent me a PowerPoint presentation by email. Since I am travelling without the laptop and my mobile phone cannot read PPT files, what should I do?

A: Forward that email message (with the PPT attachment) to pdf@koolwire.com - they’ll convert the presentation to PDF and email it back to you immediately. Most mobile phones can read PDF files.

Q: How do I directly save a web page as PDF without having to save that page as an HTML file first?

A: Go to PrimoPDF, type the URL of the web page and they’ll send you a PDF version of that page via email.

Q: How can I convert PDF files into other formats like Word documents, images, HTML web pages, etc.

A: You can upload the PDF document to Zamzar and convert it any formats like doc, html, png, txt or rtf (rich text format). Alternatively, you can convert PDF to HTML using Gmail.

Q: How do I create a single PDF package by merging files of different formats.

A: Try Loop PDF - it’s a free service that lets you combine multiple documents, images and even web pages into a single PDF file.

Q: How do I merge two or more PDF files into one? Can I also change the page order?

A: You can grab PDF Fill - it’s a versatility PDF editing tool that lets you combine PDFs from the desktop. PDF Fill can also help you rearrange pages in any order or for rotating pages inside a PDF.

Q: I want to extract some text from a PDF and use it in my Word document. What is the best option?

A: Go to PDFTextOnline and upload your PDF - it will extract text from the first 10 pages of your PDF document (to start) and will also show the PDF bookmarks, document properties, and form data (if available).

Q: I can’t get the above trick to work since I have a scanned PDF.

A: You can extract text from scanned PDF documents with Google Search. It’s not an instant process but probably the only free solution we know of.

Q: I have some restricted PDF documents on my computer in the sense that they neither allow printing nor can you select text with the mouse.

A: Get the PDF Unlocker - its a free Windows utility that will remove all common restrictions around a PDF file without requiring any passwords. Alternatively, you may use the online service at ensode.net that will remove all the printing or copying/pasting related restrictions from your PDF.

Q: Some PDF files on our company’s intranet are protected by a password that no one can remember anymore. Can we still open them?

A: Check this article - How to Open Password Protected PDF

Q: I am looking for a service that would let visitors download my articles as PDF files.

A: Add the Web2PDF button anywhere in your website - it converts web pages to PDF files on demand and also keeps a track of all PDF conversion related activities on your website.

Q: Someone sent me a PDF document in Chinese but I can read only English?

A: You can easily translate PDF files using Google Translate and Zoho Viewer.

Q: How can I add annotations or text notes to some of my PDF documents?

A: Get the PDF-X Viewer - it’s like Adobe Reader but with some extra features. You can add comments, annotations or even paste images to your PDF pages. You can also add annotations, call-outs and text to your PDFs online with PDF Escape.

Q: How do I read PDF files online without desktop software?

A: You can open PDF documents in the browser with PDFMeNot without requiring any software.

Q: Can I fill PDF forms online without Acrobat Reader?

A: Sure, go to PDF Filler, upload the PDF form and start typing. PDF typewriter works by converting PDF forms into images and allowing the user to type right on top of the images.

Q: How can I add watermarks or even my (real) signature to a PDF document?

A: First draw your signature in Paint (or other photo editing tool) and save it as an image. Make sure you crop all the blank portion that lies outside the signature. Now open the PDF document inside PDF-X Viewer and copy-paste that watermark / signature image. Simple.

Q: I have a PDF book that contains some 200 pages. Is there a way to extract selected pages from that book and save it as another PDF.

A: You can either PDF Merge or PDF SAM (split and merge) to extract pages from a PDF document.

Q: How can I protect my PDF documents with a password?

A: Upload your PDF file to PDF Hammer, set a security password and export it as PDF again.

Q: A PDF document has lot of links but I can’t click them as they are in plain text. How do I make them clickable?

A: Go to PDF Escape, upload the PDF and then place hyperlinks anywhere on the page.

Q: Which online service(s) would you recommend for uploading PDF files on the web?

A: My favorite is Issuu - they have built an excellent PDF viewer inside a beautiful interface. You can also use Issuu to embed PDF files in your own website. Next recommendation is Scribd - it’s a more popular service so your PDF document would get more eye balls.

Get things done using sticky notes as your Home Page

Sticky Screen is a simple online version of the yellow Post-It Note that you can set as your browser homepage.

You just have to type something onto the sticky note and set that website as your browser home page. No need to register anywhere and there’s no save button.

The yellow sticky note will show up whenever you start the web browser. The magic is due to a cookie that gets saved locally so the sticky note will change to the default one if you decide to clear the cookies someday.