AREA — The East Hartford Garden Club is accepting applications for one $1,000 scholarship to any full or part time student who is a resident of Andover, Bolton, Bloomfield, Coventry, East Hartford, East Windsor, Glastonbury, Manchester, Middletown, Vernon, Storrs and Windsor Locks. The students must be majoring in horticulture, floriculture, landscape design, conservation, forestry, environmental concerns, botany and other allied subjects.

School students have reached number two on the Amazon Children’s Christmas book list with readers as far away as Asia and Australia. 

Priory Community School Academy (PCSA) students produced a best-selling Christmas eBook with stories, poems and illustrations that reached the top two in the UK.  

Christmas Stories Volume 5 reached the top four in the paid book list alongside other authors such as Matt Haig and Tom Fletcher, then hit second place in the free eBooks chart. 

Stories in the book include A Collie’s Christmas by Rebecca Eastlake, The Joy By The Hearth by Lilly-May Dewhurst as well as illustrations by artists including Victor New and Liv Mason Hardy. 

Phoebe Lewis, in year eight, who wrote a poem for the eBook said: “I enjoyed writing the poem because I love rhyming, especially about Christmas.” 

Year nine pupil Freddie said: “It was really exciting. When the whole best seller thing happened it was very exciting.  

“I would like to write plays and scripts.” 

The book was published by The Priory Press, which has seven more books available on Amazon. 

Director of careers James Wilmot said: “It is great to see people from all over the world enjoying our students’ work.  

“It has achieved bestseller status in the Amazon Children’s Christmas Book Chart and peaked at number two. 

“It is a great achievement for our students. It takes a lot of bravery and creativity to produce something like this.” 

To read the book, log on to Source…

If you’ve made some New Year’s resolutions, or set some annual goals for yourself, you might be wondering: Will I succeed this year? The real test will come when you’re stressed, or tired, or just plain unmotivated.

Here’s the plain truth: If your annual goals or New Year’s resolutions feel like chores, or if they feel overwhelming, or if they feel even a little difficult, you likely won’t do them over the long run. If they are something you feel like you “should” do, but that you don’t actually want to do…eventually you won’t do them at all.

All is not lost. Consider rewriting your annual goals into something more fun. (You can use the “Throw Ambition Out the Window” worksheet at the back of this free ebook.) Many people feel like doing something that is fun and easy doesn’t count, especially if it is supposed to be good for you. You want something IMPRESSIVE, right? Maybe something that will make you immediately look better naked. No pain, no gain, right?

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Wrong. You have a choice: Do something hard and ambitious for a short period of time and then quit it, or do something that makes you feel something you want to feel for the rest of your life. I promise, the people who know
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2020 taught us some phrases you may hope to never see again. I nominate the word “unprecedented.” Even the old tech standby “disruption” took on a stark new tone amid the pandemic. However, 2020 also taught us how to be more mindful. More focused on managing our priorities. And certainly, more flexible.

You can see this reality in the articles that our community of IT leaders found the most valuable this year. You shared lessons learned on that traditional pain point digital transformation, but in the new light that the pandemic forced a rapid speed-up. (See, I didn’t say “unprecedented” speed-up.)

You also shared hive wisdom on two new pain points: Zoom meetings and virtual onboarding of new employees. As always, our community showed much passion around the topic of IT careers, both from a hiring and job-hunting perspective.

But you still made room to explore emerging technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA) and Kubernetes tools. And best of all, you made time to try and bolster your emotional intelligence, for your own sake and your team’s.

Consider this quote from our number-eight story, Emotional intelligence: 3 ways to build optimism during disruption: “Optimism isn’t a passive expectation that things will get better,” Melinda Gates once said. “It’s a conviction that we can make things better.”

Here’s to making things better in 2021. We hope you can use some of the strategies in these 10 articles to do just that:

While many aspects of life remain on hold, many organizations are charging
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Barnes and Noble currently sells two different Nook e-readers, the Nook Glowlight with a six inch screen and the Nook Glowlight Plus, which was the first Nook with a 7.8 inch screen. These two devices are primarily geared towards reading ebooks for residents of the United States. The bookseller does not accept orders in Canada, the UK or any other country. Did you just get the Nook for Christmas? Here is everything you need to know.

Bookstore – Nook e-readers have a bookstore available right on the device. You can browse a curated selection on the landing page, that change every month. They tend to be seasonable, so you can find books right now that are good reads for Christmas and New Years. There is a large selection of other books, over a million. Most are from authors and publishers you have heard of before, but B&N does operate their own self-publishing program, but it is not as big or developed as Amazon or Kobos. The bookstore also accepts pre-orders of new titles that are coming out soon.

Nook Readouts – This program launched in 2015 and is available in the navigation bar. It offers a daily selection of addictive and compelling quick reads that can be enjoyed anytime and anywhere on all NOOK e-readers. The free one- to five-minute book excerpts and
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Dr. Greg Vigna

The Vigna Law Group comments on the failures of Penumbra Inc. Jet 7.

SANTA BARBARA , CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, December 30, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ — “Penumbra Inc. made a mistake in the design of its catheter, and like many other pharmaceutical companies compounded it by not recalling the device from the market.” – Greg Vigna, MD, JD, stroke expert, national pharmaceutical injury lawyer

“We have seen this before in the IVC filter litigation when companies keep defective devices on the market as they try and make design changes in the device to avoid scrutiny by the FDA and hide the product design flaws from physicians and patients.” – Ben Martin, national pharmaceutical lawyer, co-lead counsel Cook and Argon IVC filter litigation.

“Law firms are jumping into the Penumbra litigation with no intention of litigating
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If 2020 has proved anything, it is the importance of rapid adaptability in the face of uncertainty. According to Forrester, “Last year, 85 percent of firms viewed digital as ‘nice to have.’ In 2020, every company learned that digital is critical to customer and business success.”

As we move into 2021, CIOs will be focusing on operational agility more than ever before. In fact, TechHQ found that 59 percent of CIOs and CTOs foresee their biggest challenge in 2021 to be dealing with COVID-19 recovery in relation to business operations.

[ Read also: Digital transformation: New data shows speed gains – and culture worries. ]

To prepare for the unexpected and adapt to whatever 2021 holds, CIOs must further accelerate their digital transformation initiatives and prioritize the following top five technology trends:

1. Balance remote and in-person operations

In 2020, every organization, regardless of size, industry, or location, was forced to completely re-evaluate their operations. Whether they implemented safety measures in the workplace, transitioned completely to remote work, or settled on a hybrid of the two, no company has remained untouched by COVID-19.

[ Get answers to key digital transformation questions and lessons from top CIOs: Download our digital transformation cheat sheet. ]

Going into 2021, many organizations are looking at making the slow transition back to “normal.” But what will the new normal look like? Now that organizations around the globe have seen that remote working can be productive and sustainable, many are considering a permanent hybrid operating model.

End-to-end digital transformation and cloud technologies will likely
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New Modernize eBook explains market size and trends for home accessibility

FOSTER CITY, Calif., Dec. 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Modernize.com, a leader in the home improvement and home services industry, publishes a new eBook informing contractors about the market opportunity to support seniors who may require home renovations to safely live in their existing homes and details popular accessibility changes.

The free eBook can be downloaded here: Aging in Place and Home Accessibility

Given that 10,000 people turn 65 years old daily and that 13% of Americans are over age 65 now, the existing aging in place market is already sizable. By 2030, 18% of the population is expected to be 65 years old or more. Currently, Modernize helps more than 300,000 homeowners annually to reach contractors who can offer home accessibility enhancements.

Popular aging in place solutions include:

As a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic, occupancy in assisted-living and long-term care facilities is at a 15-year low. The in-home care market is expected to grow to $225 billion by 2024.

“In-home modifications help homeowners continue to live safely and independently,” notes Gregg Hicks, vice president of Modernize.com. “Medical alerts, for example, are projected to reach more than $10 billion in sales by 2027. Now is the time for in-home care
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