Its no secret that the Brewers have lost more star power than theyve gained so far this offseason. Yasmani Grandal, Mike Moustakas, Eric Thames, and Drew Pomeranz are all gone and in to replace them are Omar Narvaez, Ryon Healy, Justin Smoak, Avisail Garcia, and Brett Anderson, among others.

Thats not quite an inspiring group of names, although they could provide similar production.

But the Milwaukee Brewers should not be happy to settle for finding players to provide similar or slightly worse production at a cheaper cost.

The end goal for this Brewers team is to win the World Series, and they fell short of it last year because their roster wasnt good enough. They shouldnt be looking just to replicate last years production. They need to improve upon it.

The best way to make that kind of improvement is to make a big move that brings in a player or players that move the needle of this roster further towards the World Series. The Ryon Healy and Eric Sogard additions are nice depth pieces, but dont really push a team from just a playoff contender to a World Series caliber team.

They should. Whether they will or not is unknown at this point. But the Brewers should be well aware of how long their contention window is open with Christian Yelich under team control for three more seasons. These next three years are the best chances they are going to have at a World Series for the foreseeable future. They have to take advantage of that.

Brewers GM David Stearns has been shedding payroll so far this offseason and they currently sit about $30 million under their 2019 payroll for next season. They have room to spend some money.

No, we shouldnt panic about the Brewers not making a big splash yet. Keep in mind, the past two offseasons, Stearns has made his biggest moves in the month of January. He got Yelich and Lorenzo Cain on January 25th, 2018 and then he signed Yasmani Grandal in early January of 2019.

The starting pitching market has been mostly picked over, and there arent any options out there that could remotely be considered a No. 1 or No. 2 starter. That leaves the trade market. Matthew Boyd and Robbie Ray seem to be the most available trade candidates and both could make sense for the Brewers to grab.

At third base, Josh Donaldson is the lone big fish remaining on that market. Reports say that Donaldson is going to get a four year deal and that might be a year too long for the Brewers, but perhaps Stearns could surprise us. On the trade market, Nolan Arenado and Kris Bryant appear to be available, but the contract for Arenado will be a sticking point and the Cubs, well, they just arent going to trade Kris Bryant to the Brewers for obvious reasons.

Of course there still is the possibility of a Josh Hader trade, which could bring back multiple good pieces to the roster, or possibly one great piece. Moving Hader would definitely count as a splash move, although not one typically a World Series contending team makes.

Theres still plenty of time to make moves, but as far as getting a big addition to the club that could actually make them more of a World Series threat, there arent that many options left.

Want your voice heard? Join the Reviewing The Brew team!

January is when Stearns has done his best work, so lets see what he can whip up this time.

Read more here:
Brewers: Will They Make A Big Splash This Offseason? - Reviewing the Brew

The Gunners sit in the bottom half of the Premier League table and have a new manager, so there could be plenty of comings and goings in north London

Mikel Arteta has only been in the job for a fortnight but he is already about to enter his first transfer window as Arsenals head coach.

Publicly, the Spaniard has stated that he hasnt made any firm plans with the club over potential January deals but he certainly discussed the club's recruitment strategy with head of football Raul Sanllehi, technicaldirector Edu and the rest of Arsenals management group during the process which led to his appointment.

Unai Emery was unable to make any permanent signings last January due to financial restrictions, meaning the only addition to the squad was Denis Suarez, who joined on loan from Barcelona.

Money will be tight once again this year, although some possible departures could allow Arsenal dip into the market if a decent opportunity presents itself.

Below, Goal takes a look at what business could be done by the north London club in January...

The big news is, of course, the imminent exit of Granit Xhaka, who looks set to return to Germany to join Hertha Berlin.

The former Borussia Monchengladbach midfielder's departure was inevitable from the moment he clashed with the Arsenal fans following his substitution against Crystal Palace in October. It was merely of question of whether he would leave in January or at the end of the season.

Xhaka is pushing for a deal with Hertha to be done immediately and although Mikel Arteta has expressed his admiration for the player, its highly likely he will leave as long as Arsenal are happy with size of the fee.

Xhaka has a contract until 2023 and Arsenal want to recoup as much of the 35 million ($46m) feethey paid for the Switzerland international in 2016.

There is also a chance that Shkodran Mustafi could move on if the right offer comes in but, as was the case in the summer, the German centre-back will not be pushed out of the club, even though it has been made clear he is free to leave.

Arsenal are unlikely to sanction any other permanent sales during January, but some youngsters, including Emile Smith Rowe, could go out on loan, as could Konstantinos Mavropanos, providing a centre-back is brought in.

Xhakas departure would make a new central midfielder a necessity. Arsenals big dilemma is, therefore, whether to try to plug the gap temporarily with a loan signing or bring in a replacement on a permanent basis.

The Gunners hold a long-standing interest in Adrien Rabiot that dates back to Arsene Wengers time in north London.

Unai Emery was also a fan of the midfielder and Arsenal tried to sign on a free transfer from Paris Saint Germain last summer only for the Frenchman to instead join Juventus.

However, things havent gone well for the 24-year-old in Turin to date and Arsenal may try to tempt Juventus into a loan deal for the remainder of the season should Xhaka complete his switch to Berlin.

Defensively, a lot depends on whether Mustafi leaves and the results on the scans which will be carried out on Calum Chambers knee following the injury he sustained against Chelsea.

Arsenal want to bring in a new centre-back but are aware they have William Saliba arriving in the summer once he finishes the season with Saint-Etienne. There is no agreement in place with the French club that could see Saliba join in January.

There was interest in Dayot Upamecano in the summer but, from an economic perspective, a deal for the RB Leipzig star would be all but impossiblethis winter.

It leaves Arsenal in a difficult situation, one that again could see them turn to a short-term loan option to see them through to the summer window, when they will have more financial clout and more of their targets are accessible.

There was some interest in Daniele Rugani during the summer and given his lack of game time this season for Juventus, he could be an option once again.

Arsenal have been decimated by injuries in recent weeks, especially in defence. where they have been without full-backs Kieran Tierney, Sead Kolasinac and Hector Bellerin.

Bukayo Saka and Ainsley Maitland-Niles have been filling in, but Artetas side will undoubtedly be stronger when the regulars return.

Arteta has set his side up in a 4-2-3-1 formation during his first two games at the club and that system looks to be the one the Spaniard will stick with during the second half of the campaign.

Article continues below

When fit, Bellerin and Tierney will certainly fill the full-back positions and Gabriel Martinelli could well come in on the left side of attack, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang moving into his preferred central striking role at the expense of Alexandre Lacazette.

The big question will be who fills Xhakas role should he leave for Germany.

Will it be Rabiot? Or will Arteta opt to wait until the summer and pair Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira together for the remainder of the season?

The rest is here:
What Arsenal need in the January transfer window - Goal.com

Every year dozens, if not hundreds, of new technological products reach the market. Some, like iPhones, Netflix, and Facebook, become overwhelming success stories, while others are ultimately deemed complete failures, sometimes even scams.

You might recall how in 2014, social networking apps promising users the ability to post anonymously began to sprout, prompting users to publish secrets, gossip, and exclusive scoops about their own friends. Perhaps the most famous was mobile app Secret, which enabled users to communicate incognito with their existing social circles on other social networks. Other apps, including Yik Yak, Whisper, and Ask.fm, soon caught on. At its prime, Yik Yak Inc. managed to raise $75 million from investors such as Sequoia Capital, while Secret Inc. raised over $35 million.

9. Magic Leaps AR glasses

Founded by Israeli entrepreneur Rony Abovitz, Plantation, Florida-headquartered Magic Leap Inc. was supposed to be the next big thing. The company claimed it could bring augmented reality technologies to the masses with capabilities that have yet to be seen outside of science fiction movies. But when its long-awaited headset was finally launched last year, tech enthusiasts were disappointed to find a less than revolutionary device, compared to existing products on the market. Earlier this month, The Information reported that Magic Leap was only able to sell about 6,000 pieces of its $2,300 device in the first six months following its launch, quite a disappointing figure for a company that managed to raise several billion dollars from investors including Google and JP Morgan.

About 18 months ago, rumors began to surface that Samsung was reviving its plans to produce a mobile device with a flexible screen. Such screens have been around for several years and were exhibited at leading tech conventions but have yet to be implemented in an actual product until Samsung took on the challenge and work on the first foldable smartphone began. The Galaxy Fold was launched in February this year but was soon christened a catastrophe.

The funny thing about Google is that while it is among the internets undisputed rulers, it has yet to gain a substantial hold on the webs three main innovative fields: social media, instant messaging, and enterprise cloud computing services. Most prominent of all is its failure in the realm of social networks, driving it to decommission all of its attempts, four so far, in the past 10 years.

6. Uber and Lyft

Ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft gained much public attention since their launch, but their failure revealed itself fully once they decided to go public. Uber had a valuation of $120 billion before its Nasdaq initial public offering (IPO) in May, which brought its market capitalization down to just $75 billion. Since then, Ubers stock has further devalued, from $45 per share at the time of the IPO to $30.67 at market close Friday, losing nearly 40% of its worth. Ubers massive losses amounted to over $5 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Its rival Lyft is in slightly better shape with $644 million in losses for the quarter but has also seen a devaluation of over 30% since its March IPO. Both companies are unlikely to become profitable before 2021.

Early in the decade, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg believed his social network should become the internets main source of information. To achieve this goal, it was not enough to have its app at the top of every mobile phone application store, and in 2013, Facebook tried to make its own Android-based smartphone to further control users content consumption. Three models were eventually manufactured by HTC, all of them shelved after failing to meet sales expectations.

Alongside his relatively successful companies, Tesla and Space X, Elon Musk also tried his hand at mass transport, with Hyperloopa sealed system of air-free tubes through which a passenger pod would travel at high speeds without resistance or friction, saving on fuel. Experiments began in 2014 but not a single kilometer of active hyperloop tunnel has yet to be built. Even Musk has seemingly moved on to standard, boring, car tunnels, founding The Boring Company in 2016.

More of a hoax than a business failure, Juicero Inc. is one of the best examples of how investors can get temporarily side blinded and waste money on fake tech. Juicero sold a $400 kitchen counter device that supposedly produced fresh, cold-pressed juice from vacuum-sealed bags sold separately. In 2017, Bloomberg called Juiceros bluff, showing readers the bags can be squeezed manually to receive the same result as the presser. A day after the story was published, The Verge reported Juicero was offering all of its customers a full refund. The company went out of business five months later.

1. Samsung Galaxy Note 7

First place had a lot of worthy contenderssome more infuriating such as Apples butterfly keyboard, malicious joy invoking such as Amazons smartphone, or hopeful as to the fate of humanity, such as the death of Googles smart glassesbut none more impressive a failure than Samsungs Galaxy Note 7. Launched in 2016, Samsungs flagship smartphone received high praise for its advanced technological capabilities and large screen but less than a year later, the company had to recall it. The reason: its batterys tendency to spontaneously combust, at one time on a plane mid-flight. Credit Suisse analysts estimated the damages suffered by Samsung as a result at $17 billion.

Link:
10 Biggest Tech Fails of the Decade - CTech

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has told club chief Ed Woodward to improve on last summers recruitment drive and has given the clubs executive vice-chairman a three-man shortlist of players he wants.

United have had an unimpressive start to the season but after their 2-1 win over Tottenham on Wednesday night they currently sit sixth in table after 15 games.

However, they are still eight points off the top-four and 22 points off league leaders and bitter rivals Liverpool.

Solskjaer has identified where he wants the board to strengthen his side over the next two transfer windows and according to the Evening Standard, he has Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho, Red Bull Salzburg striker Erling Haaland and at least one other midfielder on his wanted list.

The report also claims that while any major business is likely to be conducted in the summer, if any of his targets become available in January the club will look to sign the players on his wish-list.

JUST IN: Why Arsenal may be stopped from appointing Brendan Rodgers or Nuno as next manager [TEAM NEWS]

United have been monitoring Jadon Sancho for quite some time but will likely face competition from several clubs across Europe for the England international.

The 19-year-old, who left Manchester City to join Dortmund in 2017, has been unsettled recently by several incidents at the Bundesliga club this season and is thought to be open to a move away from Germany.

He had a breakout year last season as he scored 13 goals and provided 19 assists in 43 appearances for the club, however, he has yet to produce that same form this season.

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After making an impressive start to the league campaign he then went two months without a goal before managing to find the back of the net again at the end of November.

If United do convince Sancho to make the switch to Old Trafford it will likely cost them a lot as the youngster is under contract until 2022.

One of Uniteds main priorities is to sign another striker.

The club sold Romelu Lukaku to Inter Milan in the summer and decided against signing a replacement in that window.

Haaland could be the answer to Uniteds troubles in front of goal and the youngster has been in sensational form this season.

The 19-year-old has scored 27 goals in 20 appearances in all competitions, including eight goals in just five Champions League matches.

Although Haaland, who is the son of former Manchester City and Leeds United player Alf-Inge Haaland, will not be cheap.

And while RB Salzburg only signed the youngster themselves at the beginning of the year, the Austrian club are reportedly looking for at least 100million (85m) for the striker.

As for the other midfielder, several players have been linked with United including Leicester Citys James Maddison. However, given the large transfer fees that would be required to bring in Sancho and Haaland, Tottenhams Christen Eriksen could be a more attractive option.

Spurs are looking to offload the Dane, who is in the final year of his contract, in the January window and according to reports the club have slashed their asking price from 80m and are willing to consider bids of under 40m for the playmaker.

However, lot of teams are monitoring his situation at the north London club and they are all aware he will be able to leave on a free in the summer.

View post:
Man Utd boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has three-man transfer wish list ahead of January window - Express

Two years after Hurricane Harvey left more than five feet of water sloshing through Kingwood High School, FEMA has approved $25 million in funding to construct flood gates and waterproof the buildings brick exterior to fend off future storms.

The flood gates will protect the schools doors and windows, offering what Humble ISD Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen hopes will be peace of mind for Kingwood High students who were displaced from the campus for months after Harvey.

Now, every time that the students experience a water event, they are wondering and worrying Will this mean well be displaced, well have to share facilities, all these things, Fagen said Wednesday. We believe in letting them know that we put measures in place so their school will not be inoperable.

The $25 million from FEMA will cover about 90 percent of the cost to build the flood control system. The school district will pay the remaining $3 million. The flood mitigation systems will not be ready until 2022, Fagen said.

While the 2,700-student Kingwood High may be the first K-12 school in Greater Houston to use flood gates, it is not the first to make itself more flood and storm resistant.

After Hurricane Ike crashed onto Galvestons shore and flattened schools across that district in 2008, architecture firm PBK worked with Galveston ISD to rebuild and reinforce its campuses from future storms.

Dan Boggio, CEO of PBK, said the process to rebuild the schools into more resilient facilities took years. Construction workers built a series of levies, or berms, around many. Others were raised off the ground. One, the Crenshaw School of Environmental Studies, now sits atop stilts on the Bolivar Peninsula.

Flood gates have proven a popular flood control technique at other Houston-area institutions. The Texas Medical Center and the University of Houstons main campus installed gates in and around their buildings after Tropical Storm Allison caused hundreds of millions of dollars damage at both in 2001.

At the University of Houston, 90 of the campus then 105 buildings were damaged by Allison, costing more than $100 million to repair. Flood waters gushed into the universitys tunnel system, drowning critical utilities, and water levels reached 10 to 12 feet high in six buildings, including the Law Center, the Fine Arts Building and the Student Center Satellite.

David Oliver, now UHs associate vice president for facility and construction management, said the damage from Allison led the university to invest in flooding infrastructure, especially for its lower lying buildings.

That proved fortuitous during Hurricane Harvey, when only a handful of buildings suffered damage mainly from seepage of flood water during the record-breaking storm that dumped as much as 60 inches of rain on parts of the Houston area. One building got six inches of water inside, but that mostly was due to a pump failure.

The schools tunnels, now sealed with submarine doors during floods, stayed dry. Overall, the university sustained about $20 million in damage from Harvey, most of it from a broken steam system at one of its buildings in the Texas Medical Center, which officials were unable to address due to the high water surrounding the area.

Harvey was a very similar event to Allison not a lot of wind but tons and tons of rain, Oliver said. The difference in how the buildings performed was huge. The damage was minimal compared to Allison.

The UH flood gates are almost unnoticeable, buried so they are flush with sidewalks and roads. When water begins to soak the ground around the gates, it flows into a gap that surround the metal barriers. The water causes the flood gates to float upward gradually, eventually topping out if the water gets that high.

Kingwood has been a repeat victim of flooding in recent years. After Harvey, Fagen and her administrative team at Humble ISD began thinking of ways to prevent flood damage to the high school from future storms.

They thought about demolishing the whole building and rebuilding it on raised land retrofitted with an underground water retention system, a proposal that could have cost more than $260 million. They also considered building walls or levies around the school to keep it dry

The district ended up working with FEMA to devise the series of flood gates and waterproofing plan for the building exterior.

Preliminary designs for the Kingwood High project include the same type of flood gates used at UH, although district CFO Mike Seale said that could change. The goal is to make the gates largely invisible during dry times, but rise as high as eight feet when needed.

When it comes to waterproofing the buildings exterior, Boggio at PBK said there are two options: remove the outside brick so waterproofing can be added between the exterior walls and interior insulation; or build another wall inches away from the existing brick exterior and inserting waterproofing material in the newly created gap.

Were basically going to design the building like an inverted bathtub, Boggio said. We want to keep the water out.

It cost $63 million to restore Kingwood High after Harvey. In the six months it took to fix the building, Humble ISD sent Kingwood students to Summer Creek High School, cutting class days in half to accommodate both schools: Summer Creek students took their classes in the mornings, and Kingwood students arrived on campus in the afternoon.

Successful implementation of the flood control measures could help eliminate anxiety for parents, students and staff at the high school.

Tracey Wright, a Kingwood alumna whose 16-year-old son now attends the school, said they were uneasy before his freshman year because of the amount of damage at the school from Harvey, but now is hopeful the gates and waterproofing will keep the building dry.

If it saves them from repeatedly having to replace flooring, replace things, displace the kids, they should do it, Wright said.

shelby.webb@chron.com

Link:
FEMA to pay $25M to help build flood gates and waterproof Kingwood High School - Houston Chronicle

Pep Guardiola insists he will not be adding to his Manchester City squad in January.

The champions' faltering start in the Premier League this season has led to speculation they may seek to address their defensive problems in next month's transfer window.

The departure of Vincent Kompany at the end of last term and a serious injury to Aymeric Laporte has left City boss Guardiola short of specialist centre-backs.

Midfielder Fernandinho has been operating in the back four as a result but, with City having fallen 11 points behind leaders Liverpool, may need to strengthen to meet their ambitions.

Yet while Guardiola acknowledges a need to regenerate his squad, he is not intending to do it mid-season.

"I don't want any players in January," the former Barcelona boss said.

"If we cannot do it in summer, we cannot do it in January."

The chief reason for this is because Guardiola wants long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes, and January options are likely to be limited.

He said: "When they come in January for the next four, five, six years maybe we could think about it, but that is not possible.

"Normally the players we could think would be interesting and add something to our squad - they are not going to be sold."

A refresh is likely in the summer, however, with one departure confirmed already as veteran David Silva moves on. There is also uncertainty about the future of 34-year-old Fernandinho, who is out of contract at the end of the campaign.

Guardiola said: "Yes, David's confirmed he's leaving. Fernandinho doesn't know but it's normal for players that arrive at his age and this stage of their lives.

"Of course we have to replace them but we don't have to rebuild too much.

"Three players is not rebuilding the team. Rebuilding the team is seven or eight, as we did in the second season.

"I think at the end of the season we are going to decide on the situation - the players who finished their contracts, the players with full contracts, what we have to do, what we believe is the best for the club and organisation for next season."

Read more:
Guardiola rules out City spending in January window - RTE.ie

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--There are approximately six million commercial buildings in the U.S., nearly half of which are more than 40 years old, according to a 2019 report from the American Institute of Architects. Within their lifespan, window system solutions and energy standards have evolved significantly presenting an opportunity for building owners and occupants to reduce energy costs, improve tenant satisfaction, and increase the value of their properties.

Apogee Renovations recently published whitepaper, Window replacement: Unrealized benefits to building owners, addresses these opportunities and benefits sharing several case studies, along with considerations regarding energy payback, fossil fuel savings equivalents, code compliance, and incentives and credits. Furthermore, the publication includes a renovation specification checklist, thermal imaging comparisons, and an energy study example.

These resources are critical as building owners and developers seek solutions for not only increasing building value with aesthetically improved facades, but optimizing energy efficiency, especially given the impact of building energy use on the environment. According to a 2019 whitepaper published by the American Institute of Architects, buildings account for 45% of overall energy consumption worldwide, and urban areas account for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition to heightened sustainability standards, building owners are also faced with the challenge of ensuring occupant comfort and productivity while minimizing maintenance and energy costs. Kevin Robbins, Director of Apogee Renovation, explains, New, high-performance window systems offer significant energy savings while delivering occupant comfort to ultimately enhance tenant satisfaction and lower vacancy rates. Furthermore, there are opportunities to improve building and occupant safety, such as blast hazard mitigation and electronic eavesdropping protection.

The case studies included in the whitepaper give insight into the breadth of Apogee Renovations services and solutions and the opportunity to deliver significant value for a wide range of building types. Evaluating existing building conditions, establishing clear goals and aligning expectations for renovation will help building and property managers maximize the benefits of window system upgrades, concludes Robbins.

Apogee Renovation, an initiative of Apogee Enterprises, Inc., provides high-performance glass, aluminum framing and window system solutions to optimize energy efficiency and enhance aesthetics of commercial properties, drawing upon the resources of Apogees business units: Alumicor, EFCO, Harmon, Linetec, Sotawall, Tubelite, Viracon, and Wausau Window and Wall Systems. With these solutions, building owners and developers can reduce energy costs, increase tenant satisfaction and improve the overall value of their buildings. In addition to their updated whitepaper, Apogee Renovation has further resources available on its website at http://www.apogeerenovation.com.

About Apogee Enterprises, Inc.Apogee Enterprises, Inc. (Nasdaq: APOG) delivers distinctive solutions for enclosing commercial buildings and framing art. Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, we are a leader in architectural products and services, providing architectural glass, aluminum framing systems and installation services for buildings, as well as value-added glass and acrylic for custom picture framing and displays. For more information, visit http://www.apog.com.

Excerpt from:
Apogee Publishes Updated Whitepaper, Window Replacement: Unrealized Benefits to Building Owners - Business Wire

By Mallory Reetz

ARENAC COUNTY During the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribes semi-annual 2 percent distribution ceremony, a total of $930,881,79 was granted to Arenac and Northern Bay counties. The fall distribution took place Nov. 22 at the Saganing Tribal Center.

The tribe awarded $651,617.25 to government agencies, and $279,264.54 to education.

Interim Public Relations Director, Erik Rodriguez who hosted the ceremony, said, between Isabella and Arenac counties, over $3 Million was disbursed this cycle.

To start off with the disbursements, Arenac county received a total of $338,504.66, with $91,828 of that for the paving of Worth Rd. $40,000 for Arenac trial court facilities improvements, $40,000 to a jail transport vehicle replacement, and $40,000 to geographic information system mapping for Omer, Sterling, Turner, and Twining.

The remainder of the disbursement will go towards animal control expansion, county building and courthouse window replacement, air unit upgrade in the county building, computer-aided design workstation, the food pantry, and tax collection software.

The City of Au Gres received a total of $18,583, with a majority of it going towards a comfort station in Harbor Park.

$52,417,59 was given to the City of Omer for highrise training and equipment, park benches, and resurfacing East Broad St. Last year, they were given funds to resurface West Broad St.

The City of Pinconning received $66,700 for firefighter personal protection equipment, and for general allocation. $25,000 was given to the City of Standish for playground improvements.

Deep River Township received $19,500 towards a ballpark fence and a breathing air pack replacement. Lincoln Township got $14,300 for its park and Mason Township received $21,000 for the fire department and road stone.

Pinconning Township and Sims Township both received $1,000 for general allocation. Moffatt Township was allotted $1,880 for playscape completion and the Village of Twining was funded $17,000 for a fire department cement approach.

Standish Township was given $7,000 for software updates, cemetery and township hall improvements. Turner Township received $7,500 for parking lot improvements and ceiling fans in the township hall. Whitney Township received $16,000 for a water meter replacement and towards a lead abatement project.

The three schools that received funds from the distribution are Au Gres-Sims, Pinconning Area, and Standish-Sterling.

Au Gres-Sims received a total of $74,051 with $20,000 of it going towards one-to-one chromebook technology and 10 other items.

Pinconning received $94,713.54 with $28,320 going towards its computer lab replacement and the remainder towards 14 other projects.

Standish-Sterling Schools received $110,500 with a majority of that going towards a high school track.

During his speech, Standish-Sterling superintendent, Darren Kroczaleski mentioned that he was at a Bay/Arenac superintendent meeting that morning where they received a graph of literacy scores for about 28 school buildings in the area. The top three scores of those 28 schools were Au Gres-Sims, Standish-Sterling, and Pinconning Area. Kroczaleski said they wouldnt be able to do that without this support that provides the students with what they need.

Tribal Chief Ronald Ekdahl said, This is always a great time and a great opportunity for us to give back to the community. I look forward to continuing to have wonderful partnerships in this area and this community and continuing to give back in a good way.

SIDEBAR

Arenac County $338,504.66

City of Au Gres $18,583

City of Omer$52,417.59

City of Pinconning$66,700

City of Standish$25,000

Arenac Township $36,000

Au Gres Township$8,232

Deep River Township$19,500

Lincoln Township$14,300

Mason Township $21,000

Moffatt Township$1,880

Pinconning Township$1,000

Sims Township $1,000

Standish Township$7,000

Turner Township $7,500

Village of Twining$17,000

Whitney Township$16,000

Au Gres-Sims $74,051

Pinconning Area $94,713.54

Standish-Sterling $110,500

Read the original here:
More than $930k distributed to Arenac and Northern Bay counties. - The Arenac County Independent

For years now, Apple has been pushing the iPad as a laptop replacement; with the arrival of iPadOS, it might just have a serious shot at getting you to ditch your computer for good (or at least leaving it behind on trips). To test the current state of play, we put an iPad Pro up against a MacBook Pro in five key computing workflows.

In this case we havent added a mouse to our iPad setup, just a keyboard: Mouse support remains an Accessibility option in iPadOS, so Apple doesnt yet appear to consider it ready for prime time. Essentially, mouse support on iPadOS as it currently stands is designed to let you use a mouse instead of your fingers, rather than providing a proper desktop-level pointing-and-clicking experiencewhich, if that ever arrives, would change some of the observations weve made below.

This is something an iPad can do well: Slot in a keyboard at the bottom, prop it up like a laptop, and youve got a very capable writing machine in front of you. Get a bit of dust on your keyboard, and it doesnt even matteryou carry on. Even better, all the keyboard shortcuts you know and love are carried over, only you have to work your fingers in a slightly smaller space.

We were able to write this post in Google Docs on the web thanks to the enhanced support that Safari on iPadOS now has for desktop versions of sites (more on this below). Google will keep pushing you to use the iPadOS app for Google Docs, because it has support for offline editing and better integration with features like Split View and Slide Over, but you get a fuller suite of editing and formatting features in the web app.

As for other appstheres Microsoft Word for iPadOS, but you have to live without the most advanced and sophisticated features found on Windows or macOS. For most users, thatll be fine: If your word processing needs dont extend to the level of an academic or a professional publisher, youll be okay (and plenty of minimal writing apps are available to help).

Obviously youre on a smaller screen and a smaller keyboard with an iPad, but in terms of the software differences between iPadOS and macOS, theres not a huge amount of differences anymore. Its here that an iPad makes most sense as a laptop replacementwriting reports, replying to emails, composing letters, and so on.

As for the new cut, copy and paste three-finger gestures, we dont find them all that usefulusing an attached keyboard is much more straightforward, and app support is spotty anyway. In fact, any kind of text selection with your fingers remains occasionally annoying: Its better than it used to be, for sure, but its not yet the kind of super-intuitive, super-magical experience that Apple seems to think it is.

This is when the rubber hits the road for a lot of people on iPadOS: Editing images. That might be why Apple has been so eager to trumpet the arrival of Photoshop on the iPad, something that up to this point has been a crushing disappointment. Typing out words on iPadOS is fine, manipulating images less so.

On a MacBook Pro running macOS, you have two clear advantages when it comes to handling images: More sophisticated software, and finer control over the pixels in front of you, whether youre trying to select the bottom half of a leaf or carefully smudge along the top of someones eyebrow.

A select number of broad brush functions transfer over to the iPad and iPadOS, but without the precision of a two-button mouse or a trackpad, and without the depth of desktop-level software, youre always going to be limited. There are some fine image editors on iOS and iPadOS, but they only excel in certain areas (filters, brushes, tweaking colors and brightness).

Plowing through bunches of images to resize and crop themto specific dimensions and aspect ratiosis something were constantly doing on macOS every single day and which just isnt possible on iPadOS at the moment. For this article, all the images were taken on an iPad, then tweaked and resized on a MacBook Pro.

Our experience here has been the same as everyone else: You can fudge together certain image editing workflows on iPadOS, but it lacks some of the nuts and bolts essentials that power users need to get pictures ready for production. Unless youre sketching with the Apple Pencil or just doing the simplest of tweaks, youre going to go back to your laptop for image editing.

The main difference with browsing the web on iPadOS to browsing the web on macOS is using your big fat finger (or slightly more svelte Apple Pencil) instead of a mouse. That can make selecting individual links and menus a little more tricky, but on the whole we werent bothered by itmost of the time youre going to be able to get around just fine.

Were pretty impressed with the desktop-class browsing that Apple now says its been able to engineer inside Safari (so not 100 percent desktop browsing, but a close enough emulation). Most of the sites we tried, from ancient Content Management Systems to places like Feedly and Gizmodo, looked and functioned exactly the same as on a MacBook Pro. Even the desktop version of the Gmail web interface works fine, though its a bit crowded on the smaller display.

What you dont get, even if you hook up a mouse or a trackpad, is right-click support, or clicking-and-dragging. In some caseslike opening new tabs in the backgrounda long press does the job instead, but once you get beyond the basics then support is more limited. It does slow you down a little when it comes to getting around the web, and when youre dealing with complex web apps.

Keyboard shortcuts are supported on iPadOS however, so if youve got your trusty Smart Keyboard Folio attached (or a suitable third-party variation), then you can Tab between fields, and navigate through lists with J and K, and close tabs with Cmd+W, and use all the shortcuts you rely on on your laptop.

There were occasional problemslike something oddly positioned on a page, or pop-ups that open in entire tabsbut on the whole the web browsing experience is already a good one. Like a lot of our experience using iPadOS instead of macOS, its not a complete replacement, but youre going to be fine for most of the time.

Both iOS and now iPadOS have been growing as fully mature file management systems in recent years, and the Files app was added back in 2017 with iOS 11. At the same time iCloud Drive has been getting more powerful, and easier to access for end-users, and all those improvements come together in Files for iPadOS.

Its a lot better than it was thenyou can actually save files to your iPadbut its nowhere near the experience you get on the desktop with macOS yet. Selecting multiple files takes longer than it should, drag and drop operations are limited, and you dont get the fine control you do with a keyboard and mouse.

Files is one of the apps you can now run two instances of in iPadOS, so that means copying files between folders is fairly straightforward. Another plus is the long press option: A mass of options will now show up if you long press on a file or folder, from duplication to markup, showing the versatility of the Files app these days.

Theres no doubt that being able to plug in external drives and USB sticks really moves the iPad forward as a device that you might take out instead of your laptop more often than not. You can do just about everything you need to in terms of file management, it just takes longer and is less intuitive than on macOS.

Ultimately if youve got some serious digital filing to do then youre going to choose your MacBook Pro if youve got the choice, if only for the ability to select 300 files and move them to the Trash in the time it takes your mouse to move an inch.

Finally, weve been revisiting the Slide Over and Split View options in iPadOS, and the other multitasking features (like the Dock) that make it a bit easier to jump from app to app. As weve said, you can now run multiple instances of the same app on iPadOSbut this is limited to a certain number of Apple apps for now.

Split View undoubtedly makes a huge difference: Two apps! Side by side! Of course it does make the screen rather cramped, but if youre writing up notes, or referring to an email, or checking Twitter and Facebook at the same time, then its very handy (maybe even more so than on macOS, because the windows just lock into position).

Slide Overwhich floats a little iPhone-style window on top of your main displayseems less useful to us, but your mileage may vary. Admittedly it is good for checking apps like Mail, Slack, Twitter, Messages or whatever while youre busy working on something else. Most of the time though it just feels like its getting in the way.

You can actually Cmd+Tab between apps if youve got a keyboard attached to your iPad, which definitely helps from a productivity perspective, and the app switcher than appears when you swipe up and hold from the bottom of the display is well thought out too. In fact wed say the iPad wins in terms of jumping easily from app to app.

At times it feels like Apple wants to present the iPad as the future of computing or whatevers after computing, but its not going to want to ditch its MacBooks any time soonand the way that iPadOS is right now, its in no danger of having to do that. The OS makes iPads better than ever at doing a variety of jobs on the go, but that extra screen real estate, the sophistication of top-end desktop software, and the precision of a mouse (or trackpad) and keyboard mean professional users are only going to make one choice.

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iPadOS vs a MacBook Pro in All the Tasks That Really Matter - Gizmodo

Image: ShutterstockHackers are using BlueKeep to break into Windows computers and install a cryptocurrency miner. The vulnerability only impacts systems that are running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008. If youre running one of those three versions of Windows you should download and install a patch from Microsoft to correct the

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If You'd furthermore very successfully be Collected The utter of Windows 7, You Need This Security Replace - CONewsIndustry