The Reset This PC feature has been around since Windows 8, but its changed a lot since then. Microsoft keeps making it better and better, and its easy to miss all the improvements. Cloud Download is just the latest, most visible one.

The Reset This PC feature makes it almost like you just opened your PC for the first time, according to Microsofts Aaron Lower, a project manager in charge of Recovery at Microsoft, in a Windows Insider webcast. If youre selling or giving away your PC, you can erase your files and even wipe your drive so your data cant be recovered. If youre experiencing a PC problem or just want a clean Windows system, youll get that fresh Windows OS.

When resetting your PC, you can choose to either keep your personal files or have them removed from your PC. Either way, Windows will remove your installed programs and give you a fresh operating system.

To reset a PC, head to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery or choose the Troubleshoot > Reset This PC option in the Advanced Startup Options menu. This menu opens if you have problems booting your PC, but you can also open it by holding the Shift key while you click the Restart option in the Windows Start menu or on the login screen.

Under the hood, Windows will gather the files it needs and basically create a new Windows installation. It will migrate your personal files, if you choose, as well as hardware drivers and preinstalled applications to the new system.

RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Reset This PC in Windows 8 and 10

Windows Recovery goes a long way back. Recovery partitions began in Windows XP and were also used by Windows Vista and Windows 7. These were separate partitions containing a compressed copy of Windows and the manufacturers customizations, and you could restart your PC and boot into them to restore.

On Windows 8, the Reset This PC feature exposed the recovery feature in a standard wayPC manufacturers didnt have to build their own recovery features. While Windows 8 didnt use a recovery partition, it supported recovery images that it restored from. You could even replace the recovery image with your ownfor example, uninstalling

On Windows 10, the Reset This PC feature has always worked differently from how it did on Windows 8. Windows 10 uses imageless recovery. Instead of having a recovery image take up space on the drive, Windows 10 creates a fresh copy of Windows by assembling files present in the Windows installation. This means no storage space wasted on a separate recovery partition. Also, any installed security updates are preserved and not discarded, so you dont have to update everything after going through the recovery process, as you did on Windows 7.

Fresh Start is now integrated into Reset This PC. This lets you restore a Windows 10 PC without restoring all the manufacturer-provided softwaresome of which might be useful, but much of which is definitely bloatware that clutters and slows down your PC.

Previously, this feature was hidden. You had to go through Windows Security to find it. Lower said this project was a parallel effort alongside Reset This PC at Microsoft. It uses the same recovery tech as Reset This PC under the hood but doesnt restore those manufacturer-provided applications.

To use this, youll be able to go through the Reset process, access additional options, and deactivate the Restore preinstalled apps? option. This will make Windows perform a Fresh Start without the manufacturer provided softwarelike reinstalling Windows.

Microsofts Lower called the Windows Security option a secret squirrel entry point and said Microsoft would be discontinuing it. It makes sense for Fresh Start to be integrated into Reset This PC rather than being buried in Windows Security, which is an almost entirely separate application.

For now, the Fresh Start option is still available at Windows Security > Device Performance & Health. Click Additional Info under Fresh Start and click the Get Started button.

RELATED: How to Easily Reinstall Windows 10 Without the Bloatware

Starting with the October 2018 Update, Windows 10s recovery environment can now uninstall quality updates. These are the smaller updates Windows installs on Patch Tuesday, for example. If an update caused a problem and your PC cant reboot, you can use the Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Uninstall Updates option in the Advanced Startup Options menu to restore it rather than digging through a Command Prompt window and looking for the most recent installed KB.

The Uninstall latest quality update option will uninstall the last normal Windows Update you installed, while Uninstall latest feature update will uninstall the previous major once-every-six-month update like the May 2019 Update or October 2018 Update.

This feature may sound pretty technical, and few people may use it, but theres some good news: Windows will automatically use it when it detects a problem with an update. So, if an update renders your Windows 10 system unbootable or causes another major issue, Windows 10 will automatically uninstall that quality update when it goes through the restore process. You dont even need to know this feature exists.

Before this automatic feature, only seasoned administrators who knew what they were doing could uninstall updates from the recovery environment.

Cloud Download is the latest exciting feature. As Lower writes on Microsofts blog, the standard imageless recoverynow known as Local Reinstallcan take more than 45 minutes and cannot always repair Windows if the installation is in a really bad state or is too corrupted.

The new Cloud Download feature will let you reinstall Windows from the cloud rather than using your local copies of files. If you have a fast internet connection, it can be faster than using Local Recoveryand it can be a more reliable way of recovering Windows, too. Its just like using the Media Creation Tool to download Windows onto a USB stick and restore your OS, but its built right into Windows 10, and you can do it in a few clicks.

To use this feature after Windows 10s 20H1 update becomes stable, head to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Get Started. After selecting either Keep my files or Remove everything, youll be prompted to choose Cloud download or Local reinstall.

Lower explains how it works in more detail on Microsofts blog. It works like you might expect it to. Windows will download the files it needs from Microsofts servers, create a new root operating system folder, migrate files like drivers from your current installation, and then swap the operating systems root folder.

RELATED: Microsoft Explains How Cloud Download Reinstalls Windows 10

In the future, Microsofts Lower said that Microsoft would be simplifying the overall interface by removing those secret squirrel entry points like the Fresh Start button in Windows Security.

Also, he said he hoped to do more with Cloud Downloadrather than using the machines local hardware drivers during the reinstallation, he would like Windows to download the latest, freshest hardware drivers instead. Thats just an aspirational goal, and theres no guarantee Microsoft will do this.

Lower also said hed be interested in whether people would want Cloud Download to let them upgrade to newer builds or downgrade to older builds, so thats another possible feature for the future.

Whatever Microsoft ends up doing, Windows recovery has already come a long way from even the days of Windows 7, when you had to use a manufacturer-provided recovery partition or just reinstall Windows from scratch.

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How Windows 10s Reset This PC Has Gotten More Powerful - How-To Geek

Jeff Greenfield is a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author.

Its not hard to know what the fallout from this debate will be: Pete Buttigieg offered his strongest performance of his campaign, with a series of forceful, coherent arguments, and at least one contender for quote of the night. He drew the sharpest distinctions yet between himself and the rest of the still crowded field, and gave voters a preview of the fight he might bring to a one-on-one debate with Donald Trump.

His pushback at Rep. Tulsi Gabbards attack on what she labeled a bipartisan regime change foreign policy was the first sustained case any of the Democrats have offered in defense of an activist foreign policya case buttressed by Buttigiegs military service.

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The slaughter going on in Syria is not a consequence of American presence, he said, turning to Gabbard, who herself served in the Army. Its a consequence of a withdrawal and a betrayal by this president of American allies and American values. A small number of specialized, special operations forces and intelligence capabilities were the only thing that stood between that part of Syria and what we're seeing now, which is the beginning of a genocide and the resurgence of ISIS. Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamedashamed of what their country has done. When I was deployed, I knew one of the things keeping me safe was the flag on my shoulder represented a country that kept its word. You take that away, it takes away what makes America America.

In that single answer, Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, folded in a defense of Americas international role with a concise assault on Trumps invitation for Turkey to invade Syria. It was one of several instances in which Buttigieg, lurking in the polls just below former Vice President Joe Biden and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, made his strongest argument as a moderate alternative to front-running Biden, who, while avoiding the rhetorical stumbles of past debates, seemed to fade into the scenery as the night went on.

Buttigieg, displaying a passion that many said was conspicuously lacking in his earlier appearances, punched up on the subject of the candidates competing heath care plans. When Elizabeth Warren once again promised that costs will go down for most Americans under her no private insurance idea, Buttigieg staked out an alternative that went to the heart of the political danger of a single-payer plan. He noted that Warren, unlike Bernie Sanders, repeatedly refused to acknowledge the fact that taxes will go up for the middle class, which they argued would be more than eased by an overall lowering of costs.

A yes or no question that didn't get a yes or no answer, Buttigieg chided. This is why people are so frustrated. Your signature is to have a plan for everything, except this. No plan has been laid out to explain how a multi-trillion-dollar hole in this plan that Senator Warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in. We can move forward with the biggest transformation since Medicare. The way to do it without a giant multi-trillion-dollar hole and avoiding a yes or no question is Medicare for all who want it.

And in what is sure to be among the most featured moments of the night, Buttigieg displayed a bit of temper in an exchange with former Congressman Beto ORourkes proposal for a mandatory buyback of assault weapons.

The problem isnt the polls, the problem is the policy, Buttigieg said. I don't need lessons from you on couragepersonal or political. The problem is not other Democrats who dont agree with your particular idea of how to handle this. The problem is the National Rifle Association and their enablers in Congress and we should be united in taking the fight to them.

What we owe to those survivors is a solution. We are at the cusp of building a new American majority to actually do things that congressmen and senators have been talking about with almost no impact for my entire adult life. This is really important, OK? On guns we are this close to an assault weapons ban. And we're going to get wrapped around the axle whether it's Hell, yes, were going to take your guns?

If Im right, Buttigieg will get the lions share of the Who won? judgments, with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar earning high marks as the moderate voice of reason, and Sanders demonstrating no ill effects from his recent heart attack.

But this raises a more fundamental question: Will Buttigiegs performance matter in the only way that really mattersa bump in the polls?

We have had one example of a much-heralded debate performance whose half-life proved nonexistent. Kamala Harris critique of Joe Bidens record on busing was the featured moment of the first debate. Her rise in the polls was followed by a steady return to single digits. Why? Perhaps it was her failure to explain exactly what her health care plan was; or that the distance between her and Biden on busing was shorter than first appeared; or that, in general the rationale for her campaign was less clear than those of her rivals. Whatever the cause, her one debate moment proved far too fragile to sustain a rise in support.

Less obvious, but equally significant, was Joe Bidens continued presence at or near the top of the pack, despite three debates in which he was heard wandering through a confusing rhetorical landscape of incomplete sentences, odd allusions and garbled statistics. His decades of experience, his ties to the still-wildly popular Barack Obama, his strength among African-American politicians and voters, has thus far mattered more than his unsteady debate performances. And if youre looking for a debate moment to account for Warrens steady rise in the polls, you wont find one. Instead, her overall debate presence has been characterized by a no drama offering of policies wrapped neatly around her strivers biography and stories she has gathered from people shes met on the trail.

For those of us whose professional lives revolve around politicswho only checked on the Washington-St. Louis game during commercial breaksdebates are often seen as high political drama, with enormous stakes. Every debate is viewed through the prism of the clashes leading up to a general election, even though we are 3 months away from the first primary vote. And voters know this, which is why every survey shows a thumping majority of them say they either have no favorite or could change their minds.

If these debates matter as much as the coverage suggests they do, we should see some measurable movement in the polls. But even if we do, the more significant question is: Will that movement be sustained? Or are there other factors that will make the sound and fury of these debates underwhelming in the end?

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Will Mayor Petes Breakout Performance Actually Move His Poll Numbers? - POLITICO

It comes after he was forced to pull out of a performance in Japan earlier in the year

The Cures Simon Gallup was forced to pull out of the bands performance at Austin City Limits Music Festival last night (October 12th) and return to the UK due to another serious personal situation.

Headlining the Honda Stage on the Saturday of the festivals final weekend,The Cure were without their regular bassist, who, according to a statement put out by the band, had to return to the UK.

Another serious personal situation affecting our bassist Simon arose yesterday, and as a consequence he had to return to the UK, the statement read. It then thanked Gallups son Eden for filling in for his father: We would like to thank Eden Gallup for filling in on bass again at such short notice.

This isnt the first time this year that Gallup has had to pull out of a performance. In July, the bassist was unable to travel with the band to Japan to perform at Fuji Rock Festival. It was announced that a serious personal situation had arisen following a performance atPaleo Festival.

Eden Gallup also stood in for him then andthe band said they were very grateful to Ed for reaching out across the generational divide to help us out, and join him in welcoming his dad back for our seven remaining summer festival shows.

The Cure added to last nights statement by thanking everyone at ACL for their understanding and support.

Meanwhile,The Cures Robert Smith has revealed that the goth-rock icons have three new albums in the works with the first potentially arriving before the end of 2019.

After previously revealing that their next effort will be shaped by the darkness of losing his mother, father and brother, Smith confirmed plans for a release before the end of the year in a new interview.

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The Cures Simon Gallup forced to pull out of Austin City Limits performance due to another serious personal situation - NME Live

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 10: (L-R) Alicia Keys, Syliva Rhone and Sara Bareilles attend the ... [+] City Of Hope's Spirit of Life 2019 Gala held at The Barker Hanger on October 10, 2019 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Michael Tran/Getty Images)

As I recently wrote about after seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers play a backyard party, Oceana has become one of the most beloved charities by musicians (link below). The most beloved?

After Beyonce played last year and Alicia Keys and Sara Bareilles teamed up for a joint performance this year, it's hard to argue against City of Hope. What they achieve on a yearly basis with their Spirit of Life gala is dazzling.

It's not hard to figure out why. As City of Hope President/CEO Robert Stone told me, "Cancer touches everyone, and you have someone stand up there and tell the story. And everyone in the audience, I promise you, are thinking the same things: 'That could be me' or 'That's my loved one.' And the whole evening is about providing hope. We're gonna have a great evening with entertainment, we're gonna celebrate. But at the end of the day it comes back to providing hope."

The secret to why these events are so successful is the mix of the personal touch and the entertainment. Take this year's event, held October 10 in Santa Monica, which raised more than $4 million for City of Hope. The musical lineup was, as always, stellar.

Starting with opener Yolanda Adams, everyone, who had a personal connection to honoree, Epic Records President/CEO Sylvia Rhone, delivered. Especially Keys and Barreilles, who came out together, with Keys on piano as Bareilles sang Keys' hit "If I Ain't Got You," then switching places as Keys sang Bareilles' "Gravity," before teaming up teaming up to perform a mashup of their hits "Girl On Fire" and "Brave" for a once in a lifetime collaboration. Then all five members of En Vogue, past and present, teaming up for the first time ever to perform some of their signature songs, such as "Free Your Mind" and "Hold On."

As great as the music was, it was just one part of a night where the focus was on the City of Hope and the good they do for patients battling cancer and other illnesses.

For instance, on this night, superstar producer Kuk Harrell came up and shared his story of how he got involved with City of Hope in part from last year's honoree, Big Jon Platt. Two days before the event he and I spoke and he gave me the in-depth version of what City of Hope did for him as he battled prostate cancer and why he was at Spirit of Life as a cancer survivor first and musician second.

"I will say 100 percent it was definitely miraculous. Having my care at City of Hope was fitting for me because when I was diagnosed late 2017 and had my surgery scheduled in October of 2018, being diagnosed, it was definitely hard. But I've always been a person who looks at everything from the positive side. I've never been a doom and gloom person," Harrell said. "My faith has definitely been the mainstay of all this and when I got diagnosed I had my surgery and six weeks after my surgery, realized my surgery went well. They took out my prostate, they were able to preserve all the nerves. But I had a small positive margin at the neck of the bladder and my surgeon told me because I had that, if anything else I would have to do seven weeks of low-dose radiation treatment. I live down here in Florida, I went to a place down here in Florida and I met with the radiation oncologist here and I just didn't feel comfortable with it, I didn't feel like it was the right place and I put a call out to my manager, Jay Brown at Roc Nation, who was very aware of my situation because we all work together. He said, 'Give me five minutes, I'll call you right back.' He made a call to big Jon, who said, 'Someone from City of Hope is going to be calling you within the hour.' I think four people called right after that. And I felt right away I was at more peace with the whole thing. And then fast forward to when it was time to meet with my medical oncologist, I flew out to L.A., met with her and right away I felt more hope than anything."

The hope they give patients is why music industry figures like Platt and Rhone, who DJ Khaled called, "A legend, an icon, and a music mogul," agree to step out from behind the scenes and make rare forays into the limelight. It's because of the cause.

"To me, City of Hope means doctors, researchers and community. They create miracles that make lives whole again, and my friend Kuk Harrell is proof of that. I am proud to be associated with an organization that is at the forefront of the fight for Health Equity, for African Americans and all minorities," Rhone told me.

She sees that firsthand, as do all of the honorees, as Stone explained to me. "The balance is struck months before the event when you have the honoree come to our Duarte campus and meet patients they are impacting and see the research that they're helping. And that just feeds on itself and it's in the air throughout the day," he said.

Read more from the original source:
The Key To Success Of City of Hope Spirit of Life Galas Is The Personal Touch - Forbes

Like survivors of a disaster that may or may not have been caused by climate change, Labor is slowly emerging from their bunker to survey the wreckage wrought upon them.

Five months on from their night of horrors the opposition is showing the first signs of regrouping after what has been a soul-destroying period as the Morrison government has resumed the treasury benches sans agenda or any real sense of purpose.

In this time opposition politics have seemed to be more like muscle memory, jumping on the leak of government key messages as though they were state secrets, confecting outrage at the prime ministers faux Trumpism, goading Barnaby into saying something else ridiculous.

Under their new leader Labor has ducked and weaved as the government has attempted to draw them into political alleyways on tax cuts and medevac and lately on the drug-testing of welfare recipients, recognition that they are in no state as yet to reengage in real fights.

A harsh but fair assessment would be that the opposition has been such in name only, with an election postmortem ongoing and increasingly public disagreements from senior figures inside and outside the parliament on what comes next.

This impression is reinforced by responses to questions in this weeks Essential Report designed to get the first real take on perceptions towards Anthony Albaneses Labor.

The low regard is unsurprising, just a quarter of all voters rating Labors performance as excellent or good. Indeed, a majority of Labor voters mark the performance as fair or poor, suggesting the current stasis is not sustainable for any extended period of time.

But before anything changes, the opposition needs to agree what went so horribly wrong in May and what can be done to ensure it is not repeated.

At the heart of the rebuilding exercise is the critical question: was it the progressive platform or the political campaign that drove a bare majority of Australians to reject Labor at the ballot box?

There is one school of thought lets call them the Joels that start with the premise that Labor got captured by the left and the progressive agenda was roundly rejected by mainstream Australia as a consequence.

There is another group lets call them the Waynes who are adamant it was the campaign and not the policy that failed the party.

Ahead of the release of the official election review, Labors position on climate change has emerged as a proxy battleground for these two world views.

The Joels are arguing to wind back ambitions on emissions to neutralise the attacks from the Coalition on the impact of policies on jobs. But in Waynes world, to walk away from progressive issues such as ambitious action on climate change would be to lose the election twice along with a generation of younger voters.

This weeks rebuff of the Joels by way of a largely symbolic climate extinction motion suggests the Waynes are gaining ascendency within the opposition. But the instinct to kick the big issues down the road means the debate will be ongoing.

A separate set of findings in this weeks report backs in the theory it was the campaign, not the issues that were Labors achilles heel; with Albaneses personal attributes significantly stronger than his predecessor.

This reinforces the argument that Labors campaign and, more pointedly, the Coalitions personal attacks on Bill Shorten fuelled by a third party-funded social media info-war had a significant impact on the final result.

This uptake in leader approval is reflected in general satisfaction with Albaneses performance, although he has not put a dent in the prime ministers preferred PM status.

These findings should give succour to those who argue that it was the execution of the platform and not the platform itself that needs the rethink.

Closing tax loopholes, acting on homelessness, investing in early learning, recalibrating workplace laws, repairing the NDIS and, yes, taking decisive action on climate change, were all popular progressive policies.

The majority of the public went with Labor on the journey, but too many baulked at the final hurdle, convinced the risk of change was too great and the returned Morrison government was the safe bet.

The failure of 2019 was actually one of cadence. A campaign full of announcements and promises simply overwhelmed the public. It wasnt climate change or any one thing that cost the election, it was everything.

To torture the metaphor, the answer is not to deny the impact of climate change on the election result, it is to make the Labor party climate resistant by recognising that leadership on this issue is a perquisite for any meaningful claim to power.

The debates going on inside Labor right now are important: to lead or respond, to play big target or small, to treat the political contest as a game or a mission. How these issues resolve will determine the sort of choice Australians face in three years time.

Peter Lewis is an executive director of Essential. He is the author of Webtopia the Worldwide Wreck of Tech and How to Make the Net Work

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It wasn't any one thing that cost Labor the election it was everything - The Guardian

SANTA CLARA, Calif. The San Francisco 49ers and WellStrong medical services further expanded their physical therapy and sports rehab partnership with todays announcement of a new clinic located within the 35,000-plus square 49ers Fit fitness and recovery center in San Jose. The dedicated, co-branded facility welcomes OrthoNorCal to operate what stands as the third 49ers Rehab and Performance Physical Therapy Center open to the public in Northern California.

*** Save The Date: Thursday, October 24, 2019 *

Grand Opening of 49ers Rehab and Performance Physical Therapy Center at 49ers Fit

The 49ers Rehab and Performance Physical Therapy Center at 49ers Fit brings physical therapy and sports injury rehab to athletes and non-athletes seeking high quality care in Silicon Valley. The addition of OrthoNorCal and its experienced team of orthopedic specialists makes 49ers Fit the best-equipped physical therapy and rehab clinic in the Bay Area. In addition to the 40-yard indoor artificial turf area available for rehab drills and workouts, 49ers Fit already features an innovative recovery lounge featuring cryotherapy, NormaTec compression sleeves, hydromassages, and treatments delivered by the industrys leading experts.

We are committed to delivering the 49ers brand to our fans through innovative partnerships and initiatives such as the pairing of WellStrong and 49ers Fit, a natural pairing that will provide unmatched facilities and care for our customers, said Paraag Marathe, President of 49ers Enterprises. Combining the expertise of the OrthoNorCal physicians with the professional grade training and recovery equipment at 49ers Fit makes our facility the most comprehensive rehab and recovery center for athletes of all levels in the Bay Area.

Even the most finely tuned athletes get aches, pains, and tweaked muscles so couldnt be more excited to welcome OrthoNorCal into 49ers Fit to add their expertise to the recovery equipment that we already have in the gym, said Jeremy Piamonte, 49ers Fit general manager. Weve had already designed 49ers Fit to be a full-service fitness and recovery center and with the addition of these orthopedic specialists we really have something no other facility can match.

The partnership between the 49ers and WellStrong launched in September 2017 with the opening of the first 49ers-branded physical therapy and sports rehabilitation center at 12 Upper Ragsdale Drive in Monterey, a collaboration with Monterey Spine & Joint. That successful collaboration led to the opening of a second overall location in January 2019, the groups first in San Jose, located at 550 S. Winchester Boulevard. All three facilities are fully operational and taking patients five days a week, Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

WellStrong was founded on the belief that everyday athletes should have the ability to obtain professional athlete level care, and we are thrilled to see this idea grow with opening our third location, explained Scott Leggett, cofounder of WellStrong. 49ers Fit in San Jose is ideal as it provides convenient access to our physical therapy and rehabilitation services for an already active community.

WellStrong is an innovator in medical management services includingorthopedic, sports physicaltherapy, wellness, and prevention. At each if the three state-of-the-art, 49ers-branded physical therapy and sports rehabilitation facilities, WellStrongs licensed physicians, physical therapists, certified athletic trainers, and medical assistants operate having received cross-training and best practice education from experienced 49ers team members.

Through the opening of these clinics, 49ers and WellStrong are providing the general public with access to professional athlete-quality physical therapy and rehabilitative care provided by licensed physicians and therapists. These certified practitioners have access to the best practices and experience of the athletic training and strength and conditioning professionals from the 49ers, with the opportunity to visit 49ers training camp to learn from the pros.

We are very excited to partner with WellStrong and the 49ers to meet our patients PT needs, said Nathaniel P. Cohen, MD Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Surgery, President of OrthoNorCal. WellStrongs experience and their dedication to patient care are impressive. The 49ers history of innovation in sports performance is legendary. They match our commitment to outstanding patient care.

The orthopedic surgeons of OrthoNorCal are specially trained to treat a multitude of orthopedic conditions of the bone, joint, and muscle. OrthoNorCals San Jose location at 49ers Fit stands as their fifth following locations in four major areas in Northern California Capitola, Los Gatos, Morgan Hill and Watsonville.

Featuring state-of-the-art equipment like that used by the San Francisco 49ers, 49ers Fit is a 36,500 square foot fitness and recovery center that boasts a 100-foot 49ers turf for functional and group training, cardio and strength training, yoga, cycling and group fitness studios, recovery lounge, kids room and more. Our elite staff of personal trainers is equipped to customize a game plan to achieve your fitness goals. Our dynamic team is comprised of fitness specialists across all disciplines. Let us help you get game day ready by visiting 49erFit.com or by calling 844-49ER-FIT or 408-412-8130 for the physical therapy and rehab clinic.

OrthoNotCal Orthopedic Specialists provide their patients with the highest level of care and compassion in a personalized setting, while helping them get back to whats most important. OrthoNorCal has four state-of-the-art office locations, our doctors see patients in Capitola, Los Gatos, Morgan Hill and Watsonville. OrthoNorCal offers specialists to cover surgical and non-surgical expertise for all areas of the body as well as imaging experts and workers compensation and occupational health specialists. Additional information is available at OrthoNorCal.com.

WellStrong strives to add value to its patients, physicians, and partners. WellStrong and its affiliates are driven to provide professional athlete-level care through its experienced team, cutting-edge technology, and facilities. WellStrongs belief is that movement is medicine, and its goal is to help individuals achieve their highest level of performance. A partnership between WellStrong and the San Francisco 49ers was formed in September 2017 to provide professional-athlete level treatment andpreventionfor sports-related injuries at affordable prices. Additional information is available at WellStrong.com.

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WellStrong Bring Physical Therapy and Sports Rehab Concept to 49ers Fit in San Jose - 49ers.com

Managerial advice and how-to articles on leadership are everywhere. From online forum participants to your former bosses, everyone has an opinion on how to be better leaders. However, even well-intentioned advice has an expiration date.

We asked the members of Forbes Coaches Council for their take on common managerial practices, particularly focusing on what they consider to be outdated for todays managers. See their responses below to understand which older practices to keep out of todays work environment.

Forbes Coaches Council members list common managerial practices they think are now outdated.

1. Measuring Physical Presence And In-Office Time

Today's expected workplace is "virtual." Employees can work from anywhere. All too often, however, leaders have a mindset that if they don't see you in the office, then you aren't working. This makes leveraging a virtual workplace very difficult, and employees today expect this as part of the benefits of working with a company. Leaders should focus on actual results and not physical presence. - John Knotts, Crosscutter Enterprises

2. Giving The Annual Performance Review

Ditch the yearly performance review. It's outdated and ineffective. Business moves quickly, so your feedback should too. Find ways to give employees feedback as often as possible. Retire the concept of a manager and adopt that of a coach. Ongoing feedback allows team members to immediately make improvements to their performance and increases employee engagement as an added bonus! - Jennifer Peatman, Jennifer Peatman Coaching and Consulting

3. Strictly Separating Your Business And Personal Lives

Vulnerable leadership and personal branding require you to show up as a human at work. Your employees want to know that you're human toothat you have a life, family, friends and story that's meaningful to you that intertwines with the work you do. You need to show up to work with leadership presence and personality if you want to establish credibility and trust with your employees. - Alex Rufatto Perry, Practically Speaking, LLC

4. Motivating Staff Through Money Alone

Money is not an effective motivator for most people, though they will pretend that it is. Incentivization with money is what managers do when they don't spend the quality time to get to know their people. People have their own motives already. You just have to know how to find them and connect them to business activities. When you connect to self-interest this way, you create engagement. - Josef Shapiro, Clear and Open

5. Only Assessing Competency

Competency modeling and assessment was the hot feedback and evaluation method of the previous generation. As an expert in assessment, I noticed myself evolving this idea over a decade ago because competent people can often get tunnel vision. When they know a lot, they also become less open to wholesale changes and innovation. In today's fluid workplace, agility has become more important. - Pam Boney, tilt365.com

6. Treating Every Employee The Same

Old-fashioned managers went for absolute consistency in the treatment of employees, afraid that conscious deviation from policy or rules would set a new precedent forever. The agility and diversity of a modern workspace demand occasional flexibility. Today's leaders need to make the right decision at the right time for the right people, and never assume that by doing so they have reset a policy. - Tom Kolditz, Doerr Institute for New Leaders

7. Giving Formal Written Performance Feedback

The new generation embraces and prefers more immediate communications. Use social media to celebrate wins, text your team members, engage in person and via mobile tools. Stay in touch, engaged and provide real-time feedback. This is the new "open-door" policy. The tech-savvy workforce uses mobile tools as frequently as we use to dial-in to speak to someone. Take advantage of that immediacy. - Rosa Vargas, Authentic Resume Branding & Career Coaching

8. Focusing On Fixing Weaknesses

Focusing on the weaknesses of employees could be one of the most outdated pieces of advice. It triggers employees to feel consistently insufficient, which is one of the most difficult emotions to deal with. Concentrating on developing weaknesses takes a lot of energy and time while making it hard to achieve good results. Contrary, strengths are resources that can easily be activated and are motivational by nature. - Elif Suner, Elif Suner MBA, M.Ed, PCC - Coaching, Training, Consulting

9. Requiring Optimism

Traditionally, managers were told that pessimists would harm the flow of work and hurt staff morale. Some managers tried to require a positive attitude at work. New research shows that employees wandering around the workplace sounding like Eeyore actually serve a positive purpose. As long as they are located in the right job, pessimists save companies money by troubleshooting to prevent problems. - Doris Helge, Women's Leadership Success Strategies

10. Using Command-And-Control Leadership

Command-and-control leadership was highly effective in the industrial age when the focus was on individuals being accountable for producing material goods. In today's information economy, the focus is on producing and sharing knowledge. This requires shared leadership and collaboration. High-functioning teams have multiple leaders in clearly defined roles who share a common purpose. - Emily Rogers, Emily Rogers Consulting + Coaching

11. Keeping Quiet About Your Mistakes And Worries

"Keep a stiff upper lip" and the similar maxim of "never let them see you sweat" are outdated and inauthentic to boot. To promote true teamwork, a leader should demonstrate to the broader team that it is actually OK to make mistakes versus withholding information because we learn, grow and thrive collectively when we are honest and accountable to each other, regardless of our job titles. - Debbie Ince, Executive Talent Finders, Inc

12. Seeking Full Consensus From The Team

Consensus and agreement, which used to be the hallmarks of excellent management, aren't as effective as we once thought. Getting everyone "on the same page" can stifle voices of dissension. And the knock-on effect is that new ideas and different viewpoints aren't explored, inclusion suffers and innovation probably won't happen. Encourage spirited discussion, and watch your team's creativity soar! - Kate Dixon, Dixon Consulting

13. Concentrating Solely On The Bottom Line

Concentrating only on the bottom line is pass. Managers who focus only on one stakeholder (investors) risk failing that very one. There is research galore to prove that when companies work to serve all stakeholders, rather than exploit some to serve one, financials improve. Managers need to align all stakeholders, including investors, so they position their companies better for the future. - Kelly Tyler Byrnes, Voyage Consulting Group

14. Prioritizing Tenure Over Talent

Traditional management called for us to consider time on the job as a significant factor when considering a promotion. Today, we know some very young, new-to-the-firm talent can outshine long-tenured team members. It is critical that managers employ a "leapfrog" strategy where the person with the best performance and potential is promoted ahead of those who may have been here longer. - Jennifer Wilson, ConvergenceCoaching, LLC

15. Encouraging Vertical Silos

One piece of managerial advice I would consider outdated is vertical leadership. As the modern workplace changes, so does leadership. Managers should step out of their vertical silos and into horizontal connection, building trust that is bi-lateral. This is the basic law of social psychology: the reciprocity principle. Managers need to develop employees across the board, not just high potentials. - Elizabeth Ruiz, EAR Enterprises

Read the original here:
15 Outdated Practices Managers Shouldn't Follow In The Modern Workplace - Forbes

Bobbi Stokes faces her students when she leads classes at Riverview Fitness, a position that comes with a distinct disadvantage.

I tell them all the time, You guys are really pretty, but I barely looked at the water today.

The gym includes circuit training, cardio and group fitness rooms and arguably the best view onto its nearby surroundings in all of Buffalo Niagara.

It perches above the mouth of the Niagara River with the Youngstown Yacht Club below, Fort George and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., straight ahead, and Old Fort Niagara and a U.S. Coast Guard Base on its starboard side.

Ive noticed when people do something really hard, while theyre counting or they're breathing, they stare at a boat, Stokes said. That's their focal point, which is really cool. It gives them something to focus on instead of the strain. At the end of the class, they clap. They're thankful.

Fitness wasnt meant to be this spectacular, and whatever ways we move our bodies into a more active stage releases endorphins and other chemicals that make us feel better overall.

Still, if you have to get up for a 6 a.m. workout or hold a handstand scorpion yoga pose for 30 seconds, there ought to be some immediate gratification somewhere, right?

Thats why we asked those who follow WNY Refresh on social media where we could find the best gyms with a view in the region. Heres a closer look at the top three recommendations.

Don Heins runs the self-propelled treadmill at Impact Sports Performance at LECOM Harborcenter while enjoying the view of Canalside and the Buffalo waterfront below. (Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News)

LECOM Harborcenter, 100 Washington St., Level 6; impactnextlevel.com;855-4585

Provides strength training, rehab exercise, yoga and cycling.

The practice that handles medical duties and athletic training for the Buffalo Bills, Sabres and Bandits took ownership this month of the public fitness facility at Harborcenter, but one of the things that wont change is the view.

Impact Sports Performance, the name of the sixth-floor space that overlooks Canalside and the Buffalo Harbor, also will remain the same, though it now will be run by UBMD Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine.

A series of Wattbikes, Versa Climbers and self-propelled treadmills stand alongside giant windows that face the waterfront, providing members and visitors a panorama below that can include kayakers and boaters in the Buffalo River, outdoor concerts and fitness classes in warmer months, and skaters on the Ice at Canalside in winter. (Public ice skating is scheduled to start Nov. 20.)

The new owner which helps athletes of all stripes mend from sports-related injuries plans to add a more robust clinical-performance model that builds off the strength, conditioning and rehab reputation Impact Sports Performance has gained since opening in early 2015.

UBMD Ortho which also handles athletic training for the Rochester Americans, University at Buffalo Bulls and several local college teams also will train the Buffalo Jr. Sabres and Academy of Hockey, as well as the general public.

We feel like the view of Canalside and the surrounding area really connects us to the City of Buffalo, the staff said in a statement.

Quarter Deck Athletics members carry some of their workout equipment up eight flights of stairs to the top of the Adams Parking Ramp on some fair-weather Saturdays. Those who participated during a recent weekend included, from left, Sarah Losi, Emily Ciraolo, Laura Mahoney, Steph Karnas, Jenny Stanek, Andrew Whiteford and Katie Morris. (Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News)

391 Washington St., lower level on the northeast edge of the Hotel @ Lafayette;qdathletics.com;464-3659

Provides personal training, group training, CrossFit QDA, nutritional coaching and chiropractic care.

Quarter Deck Athletics set up shop three years ago in a one-time speakeasy in the basement of the Hotel @ Lafayette. It features windows, pillars, sconces and chandeliers that would be the envy of most gym owners across the region but that isnt why QDA made this list.

Its because owner Dennis Lesniak, a chiropractor and CrossFit fanatic, has been known to take his group fitness classes on the road to spots that include Canalside, Gallagher Beach and Tifft Nature Preserve.

The most unique and arguably most scenic of them all, however, is the top level of the Adams Parking Ramp two blocks away at Elliott and Eagle streets.

Lesniak and several members carry barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells up eight flights of stairs to the rooftop of the ramp for workouts, usually on Saturday mornings when parking is hardly at a premium in the city business district.

Its nice to go outside do something different, QDA personal trainer Erica Caso said. It helps train different muscle groups, she said, and serves as good practice for some members who enjoy rucking, a fitness pursuit that involves lugging heavy backpacks for miles at a time.

The view from the top gives a plentiful sampling of Buffalo landmarks. The neighboring M&T Bank, Liberty and Hilton Garden Hotel buildings stand tall to the north and west; the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and Central Terminal are to the northeast. Southern views start in the east with the windmills along Lake Erie, the Old First Ward and Sahlen Field, and move across toward the Ellicott Square Building and KeyBank Center, then to the face of St. Pauls Episcopal Cathedral, Canalside and the Skyway.

I've had a couple people tell me, That's my tanning place in the summer, Lesniak said. It's a nice way to utilize some outside space downtown. Were very respectful of the space and we make sure we leave it cleaner than when we got there.

Quarter Deck opened several months after Butterwood Sweet & Savory restaurant shut down in the same 3,000-square-foot quarters just inside the northeast entrance of the hotel. It features cardio and strength-training equipment and six showers, catering to many professionals who use the space before or after work.

It's cool to be part of the revitalization of the downtown area, Lesniak said.

Sandy Johansson goes through a circuit training class in the group fitness room at Riverview Fitness in Youngstown. Owner Bobbi Stokes opens the large window when the weather is nice. (Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News)

445 Main St., Youngstown; learn more about classes at mindbodyonline.com or 219-4097

Provides strength training, PiYo, yoga, cycling, barre, SilverSneakers and beginner meditation.

Those in group fitness classes at this 1,500-square-foot facility and on the rower, four stationary bikes, three elliptical trainers, a pair of treadmills and a squat rack in the cardio space can look directly out the windows onto the Niagara riverscape. The group fitness space, added last fall, also includes a fireplace and windows that fold out, giving way to fresh air in good summer and fall weather.

The sight of people dancing on boat decks is common, Stokes said, and the crackle of cannon fire and smell of smoke from one of the historic nearby forts sometimes fills the air.

Instead of looking at a wall, youre seeing something that brings you happiness, she said.

The gym has changed hands several times since it opened two decades ago in what was built as a hotel more than a century ago.

Stokes certified to teach group fitness in several styles has run the place for a year. She quit her longtime job as a bartender in Lewiston earlier this month after she bought the business.

Linda Reynolds, who works part-time in the gym and takes classes there, said some members do part of their workouts, including jumping rope, on the outdoor patio along the riverbank, which also sports six Adirondack chairs.

We had someone come in during the summer from Ellicottville, and she was just starting up a gym down there and wanted to see ours, Reynolds said. She and her husband were extremely impressed.

Janine Bellonte is among gym members who credit Stokes and another Riverview instructor, Karen Oakley, with breathing new life into the gym. Both have warm, engaging approaches to classes and regularly mix styles and routines to keep things fresh, said Bellonte, a recently retired instructional coach with the Niagara Falls school district who takes three or four classes a week.

Riverview has forged close friendships among members who often end workouts with breakfast or a cup of coffee next door at the Youngstown Diner, which also overlooks the Niagara.

I don't think you could find a better view, Bellonte said.

email:refresh@buffnews.com

Twitter:@BNrefresh,@ScottBScanlon

Read the original here:
Three gyms that offer striking views with their workouts - Buffalo News

With artificial intelligence (AI) transforming a variety of industries, many people in the world of requests for proposals (RFP) are asking if the bidding industry is next. AI may be on its way to changing the world, but it is not yet ready to take over the world of bidding. Cutting-edge technology can help your contract proposal operations reach their full potential, but experienced (human) experts are still needed to deliver a winning bid.

Technology-Enabled Efficiencies

The promise of artificial intelligence is understandably appealing to firms leveraging RFPs for new business and growth. Artificial intelligence, or the idea that digital technology can achieve a level of learning, thinking and acting like humans, presents a future that can replace the most arduous tasks (as many people would characterize RFPs). They may think the process of identifying a relevant contract opportunity, creating and submitting a proposal, and winning a signed contract for new business can be fully automated.

For now, however, even advanced machine learning technology still lacks the dexterity, accountability and independence needed to make this future a reality. Take, for example, the idea of AI-enabled autoresponses to an RFPs requirements or scope of work.

Intuitive advancements to proposal templates make inputting a prewritten response more seamless, but RFP language is still far too divergent for software to identify the correct response and input a completely responsive answer without any human guidance. Even bid offerors in the same industry will all have different priorities and specific needs and use varied terminology.

The day when RFP software is advanced enough to handle these language intricacies is likely coming, but it is not here yet. In our experience, no software at the moment comes even particularly close.

Still, technology-enabled efficiencies are becoming an increasingly important part of competitive bidding. Prewritten responses should not be automatically added to a response without personal review, but they can save time and money when used strategically. Additionally, automatic tracking of metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs) and other information relevant to your industry and organization is an important tool to keep your bids informed and up to date with the latest information and intelligence.

Curated databases are slowly incorporating machine learning techniques to improve the relevance of search results and help you identify a perfect RFP opportunity. Again, personal attention is needed to fully implement these advantages, but directing your team to input customized search parameters such as geography, contract size, industry type, etc. can lead to a more optimized process of RFP opportunities for your organization to review.

The Human Touch

Aside from the complexities of human language, RFP opportunities and bids need a personal touch to translate explicit requirements into an intuitive format that gives a bid reviewer the information they need in a digestible way. Automated responses coming off an assembly line are less likely to stand out, and winning an RFP is all about standing your proposal apart from the rest.

Making use of visually engaging charts, graphs and images will help your message come across more clearly while demonstrating your business's technical skills. Evaluators often value creativity, because it demonstrates a solid understanding of the subject matter while saving them time and effort.

For example, design software like Adobe can help you create infographics, but an expert is needed to identify which information to highlight and decide the best visual format to do so. Because the information needed for RFPs is still contained in such a wide variety of formats and documents (different companies using different financial formats, different states using different information fields, etc.), AI struggles to pull the information efficiently and plug it into necessary visual templates.

A Hybrid Approach

RFP experts both external and in-house can help businesses and organizations on both sides of the RFP process to manage, design and win bids. In our experience, a hybrid approach that blends AI-enabled time-saving tools with expert-driven, detailed responsiveness is the best path forward more Ironman and less Robocop!

Read more here:
Why RFPs Need A Human Touch - Forbes

Brian Niccol, CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday:

Morgan Stanley said it sees a "balanced" risk/reward.

"We see increasing downside risks to CAT's Construction and Energy & Transportation segments. Resources segment and share repurchases continue to support EPS, but are unable to fully offset these headwinds. We now see negative EPS growth in FY20, 10% upside to our PT, and a balanced risk reward."

Read more about this call here.

KeyBanc said it is looking for "greater" visibility on the next catalyst to "drive" outperformance of the stock.

"WM has outperformed the group YTD in part due to the pending ADSW acquisition. We view management's bull-case 7-9% EBITDA/FCF growth outlook for 2019-2021 as comfortably achievable with the addition of ADSW, which presents an attractive relative valuation on combined company estimates. That said, we are moving to SW on WM as we look for greater visibility on the next catalyst that will drive relative outperformance at current levels."

Mizuho initiated the managed health care group and said it had a "positive" view of the industry.

"We are initiating coverage of the diversified managed care group including UNH (Buy, Price Target $270), HUM (Buy, Price Target $316), CI (Buy, Price Target $180) and ANTM (Neutral, Price Target $262). Although political rhetoric will likely create increased volatility in the group leading up to the 2020 Presidential election, our ratings are based on the fundamental outlook for the industry, which we view as positive."

Telsey said it sees strength in the online personal styling service as both an apparel retailer and a technology company.

"Our investment thesis in Stitch Fix rests on what we see as two characteristics that support its valuation: 1) it is an apparel retailer that has shown considerable topline growth potential; and, 2) it is a technology company that has consistently generated positive free cash flow. Therefore, we see the potential for a business that can self-fund growth in a category that remains open to disruption."

Citi upgraded Altria and said it thinks cigarette volumes will "improve."

"We have been negative as we thought the rate of cigarette declines cast doubt on the long-term outlook. However, we now expect less bad volumes next year as we think (1) e-vapor usage will fall due to the negative publicity around vaping and the imminent flavor ban, and (2) this will help cigarettes. The stock is below our target and we think it no longer looks expensive relative to overseas peers. Unfortunately we expect the short-term newsflow (on FDA regulation and earnings) to be difficult."

Guggenheim said it sees "upside" to 2020 consensus.

"In our view, DPZ's outlook has been meaningfully de-risked after last week's updated 2- to 3-year guidance, which included lowering the domestic SSS range by 100bps as well as announcing F3Q19's 2.4% domestic SSS, its lowest in 7 years. We see several drivers of upside to consensus's 2020 estimates and are raising our price target to $310, up from$280 prior, as we anticipate investor sentiment to improve into 2020."

Credit Suisse said it sees a "tougher" road ahead for the softlines space.

"The US Softlines Retailer group (incl M/JWN/KSS/JCP/GPS/LB among others) is now trading at a -3% discount to its 5-yr avg EV/EBITDA (vs. a +3% premium to the 5-yr avg one year ago today)adding some margin of safety for Softlines stocks. That said, the negative NT industry data points are adding up. As we look across our coverage, we see the most risk of negative revisions to 2020 Street ests for Macy's, GPS and LBand we think low valuation alone won't be sufficient to protect further stock downside."

Bank of America upgraded the social media company and said it had higher conviction it would continue to expand its average revenue per user.

"Based on: 1) Stock has sold off recently despite solid industry ad spend checks, 2) Ongoing Discover content rollout (8 new shows this fall) gives us higher conviction on realizing potential Snap ARPU expansion, 3) the secular tailwind from OTT traction taking linear TV time, benefitting Online video ad spend, 4) 4Q expected to be Snap's first positive EBITDA quarter, changing the narrative, and 5) recent public CEO comments suggest better appreciation of need for stock performance."

Bank of America upgraded the stock on "stronger" comp and margin outlook.

"We are moving to Neutral on Chipotle and raise FY19 adj. EPS to $13.70 (from $12.70) and FY20 to $17.15 (from $15.50) on a stronger comp and margin outlook. While we still struggle with the valuation upside, our expectations that CMG will deliver near-term EPS upside to consensus makes a correction in the multiple unlikely, driving our decision to move to Neutral."

Read more about this call here.

Macquarie said it views the cruise company as "best in class."

"Since transferring coverage, we've viewed RCL as best in class, further solidified by the positive momentum in Asia something that has eluded peers. Results could be messy, but Dorian is a one-time, and adv. booking sentiment remains strong aside from Dorian, and at a current near-trough PE multiple, we see substantially more upside than downside, even if leverage is higher than peers'."

Bernstein said it expected to see "upside" from management's sales guidance when Beyond Meat reports earnings on October 28th.

"We continue to expect significant growth in the plant-based meat category and expect there to be upside to management's FY19 sales guidance. Specifically, management expected sales to exceed $240m in FY19, which could be conservative as it does not include the incremental revenue from potential new foodservice and retail partnerships, like Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds and HelloFresh."

Continued here:
Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: Macy's, Chipotle, Beyond Meat, Caterpillar & more - CNBC