Author: Brad

“Plato’s Atlantis” eBook

Posted on Categories PublicationsTags , , ,
Plato's Atlantis

For those who missed my promotional Kindle giveaway version, my short compilation, Plato’s Atlantis, is now available to purchase as an ebook.

“For centuries, the tale of Atlantis has captured the imaginations of millions across the world. Atlantis has been featured in everything from books to films to toys, and the search for the lost continent as been undertaken by some of the best minds humanity has to offer. This volume collects the original source material for the legend, Plato’s dialogue Critias and a selection from Timaeus, translated by nineteen century Oxford scholar Benjamin Jowett.”

Plato’s Atlantis is available from both the Kobo and Nook bookstores. For the time being, it is no longer available as a Kindle book.

“Windows to the Soul” Now Multi-Platform

Posted on Categories PublicationsTags ,
Windows to the Soul new cover

My 2011 book of poetry, Windows to the Soul is now available on multiple platforms!

Windows to the Soul is “A collection of original poetry, composed by K. Bradley Washburn between 1996 and 2006. The seventy-five poems in this volume are actually part of a larger unpublished work titled “Tapestry,” and consist of love poetry, religious ballads, and random musings.”

For the second wave of my book, I have replaced the old 2011 cover with a new, updated cover. Those who purchase a paperback copy will still receive the old cover, but all ebook editions have the redesigned cover. Click the links below to purchase Windows to the Soul from your favorite retailer.

Amazon (Paperback, Kindle)
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords (many formats)

New Book: “Myths of the World”

Posted on Categories PublicationsTags , , , ,
Myths of the World

I have been working on an ebook for a little while and it just went on sale for the Amazon Kindle. It is called Myths of the World. The book is really a collection of articles which I posted from 2011 to 2012 on my now defunct website mythsoftheworld.blogspot.com. Below is the book’s description:

“Every civilization, no matter how old, has a body of traditional stories which define its culture heritage. Many of these myths and legends have a direct effect on customs and religious traditions within societies. Comprised of articles originally published on mythsoftheworld.blogspot.com, this volume provides a small sample of some of the myths, legends, and folklore from cultures across the world.”

Right now, the book is only available for the Kindle, but I will shortly be making it available in the .epub format, which works for most other e-readers.

Click here to purchase Myths of the World

As a bonus, I am also giving away a free ebook, Plato’s Atlantis, which can be downloaded for Kindle here until January 1, 2014.

“For centuries, the tale of Atlantis has captured the imaginations of millions across the world. Atlantis has been featured in everything from books to films to toys, and the search for the lost continent as been undertaken by some of the best minds humanity has to offer. This volume collects the original source material for the legend, Plato’s dialogue Critias and a selection from Timaeus, translated by nineteen century Oxford scholar Benjamin Jowett.”

eLearningPlanner.com Website

Posted on Categories Web designTags , , , , , ,

For about a month now, I have been designing and building a website for LearnKey. The site is eLearningPlanner.com, and it just went live last week. The site is a “free online career pathway and leadership trait assessment that matches your talents with customized ‘job ready’ video-based training programs.” I was in charge of the design and the HTML for the site, but another company was contracted to do all the heavy-lifting on the backend. They ended up changing some of the HTML, so it turned out a little different from the original design. Here are some screen shots of the original design:
Landing-Page Results-Page-2

The 10 Best iPad Jailbreak Apps and Tweaks

Posted on Categories MiscellaneousTags , , ,

While the iPad is useful for many things, it’s also limited by the built-in restrictions created by Apple. To overcome these restrictions an app called Cydia has been created, which provides a pseudo app store for unauthorized tweaks and apps. Cydia is not available in the regular app store, but can be downloaded for free from www.jailbreakme.com.

For those choosing to go this route, I have put together a list of the top ten apps for jailbroken iPads. This list is compiled from lists created by several other Web sites. From those lists, I chose the apps which appeared most often for this list of top ten jailbreak apps.

1. SBSettings (Free)

Using Activator (see #5), SBSettings creates a handy user interface for frequently-changed settings, such as turning on and off Bluetooth.

2. iFile ($4)

iFile is a file manager and viewer for your iPad’s file system. It allows you to have direct access to the files and folders in iOS and allows you to attach files to email.

3. Winterboard (Free)

Winterboard allows you to change and modify themes on your iPad, even allowing the customization of app icons.

4. RetinaPad ($2.99)

RetinaPad is a handy app when you have apps on your iPad which were only built for the iPhone. RetinaPad smoothes the graphics of the apps, so they aren’t pixelated when blown up to iPad size.

5. Activator (Free)

Activator is an app which allows you to create gesture shortcuts. With this app, you can assign gestures to different apps or actions and increase the usability of the touchpad interface.

6. Infinifolders ($0.99)

Infinifolders was designed to overcomes Apple’s 12-app limit inside folders. With Infinifolders, you can put as many apps as you want inside a single folder.

7. FullForce (Free)

This app does just what the name suggests. It forces applications to show in fullscreen iPad mode, even when they aren’t certified as compatible.

8. PDF Patcher 2 (Free)

To Jailbreak your iPad, Cydia exploits a vulnerability in the way iPads handle PDF files. This tweak fixes that vulnerability so hackers can’t take advantage of it.

9. LockInfo ($7.99)

LockInfo provides on-screen access to certain information, even when your iPad’s screen is locked.

10. CyDelete (Free)

CyDelete provides an easy way to uninstall apps installed using Cydia by placing a black X in the corner, just as if they were regular iPad apps.

The 10 Best iPad Apps

Posted on Categories MiscellaneousTags , ,

When I first bought my iPad, I spent some time researching, trying to discover what types of apps I wanted and which apps of those types were the best. Based on that research, I have put together this list of which apps are considered the ten best apps. In compiling this list, I used several lists compiled by various Web sites and picked the ten apps which appeared most frequently. Your choices may vary depending on your individual needs; I, in fact, only use six of these ten apps.

1. Instapaper  ($4.99)

Instapaper is listed in the News category in the App Store, but it can be useful for almost any time of reading. This app allows you to save a Web page for later offline reading. Handy for when you find a long article or post, but just don’t have time to read it at the moment.

2. Netflix (Free)

While this app is free, to use the Netflix service you must have a Netflix streaming subscription. Otherwise this app is useless to you. It’s great for watching streaming videos, although the Netflix selection can sometimes by limited.

3. Flipboard (Free)

Flipboard is a news and social media aggregator. It takes feeds from Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Flickr, Instagram, and many news and entertainment sites and combines them into one interface, allowing you to get your news and check your friends’ statuses in one easy place.

4. Kindle (Free)

Kindle is Amazon.com‘s ereader. The Kindle app allows you quick and easy access to every Kindle book you have purchased through Amazon. Unfortunately, you can no longer purchase books directly through the Kindle app; instead you must visit Amazon.com and have them sent to your iPad.

5. Epicurious Recipes and Shopping List (Free)

Using the Epicurious.com Web site, this app allows you quick and easy access to your favorite recipes. The app also allows you to create shopping lists based on those recipes and e-mails both the lists and recipes to your friends.

6. Star Walk for iPad ($4.99)

Using your iPad’s camera, Star Walk is an app that provides a graphical overlay of the sky, showing you the constellations and locations of satellites in wherever direction your camera is pointing.

7. Dropbox (Free)

The Dropbox app requires a free account with Dropbox.com. It provides you with a place to store files for easy access and sharing, similar to an FTP site. Once downloaded to your iPad, the files can by opened in any app supporting that file’s type.

8. Adobe Photoshop Express (Free)

While not as powerful as a full blown version of Photoshop, this app allows you to perform quick, simple edits and share photos on Photoshop.com. It’s great when you need a photo editor on the go.

9. Twitter (Free)

The Twitter app gives you instant access to your Twitter account. From the app, you can perform all the basic functions of Twitter without having to use a computer.

10. Marvel Comics (Free)

If you’re into comics, especially Marvel comics, this is the app for you. The app includes several free comics, as well as an easy interface to purchase and download many more comics and graphic novels.

LearnKey Promotional Videos

Posted on Categories Miscellaneous, Motion GraphicsTags , ,

For the last couple weeks, I have been building short videos at work to promote our training courses. Several of these videos are on YouTube and will eventually make it to the LearnKey blog. One of my video made it to the LearnKey blog a couple of weeks ago: the promo for LearnKey’s Premiere Pro CS5 course. Check it out at https://blog.learnkey.com/?p=3004.

Check out more of my LearnKey promotional videos on LearnKey’s YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/LearnKeyVideo, or my LearnKey Promotional Videos playlist, https://www.youtube.com/user/artisticimposter?feature=mhee#p/c/64DD74C69913AE88.

Image Resolution

Posted on Categories Miscellaneous, PrintTags , , , ,

I recently read an article on iStockphoto about image resolution. Many people get confused when it comes to amount of pixels versus pixels per inches (ppi, also known as dots per inch or dpi). As a graphic design professional, I have known many professional designers who didn’t understand the difference. iStockphoto’s article gives a very good overview of the difference and explains how to calculate the total inches (or centimeters) of an image based on the ppi and total pixels.

Photoshop users have it easy. The Image Size dialog box automatically calculates the inches for you based on the resolution you need. The most important thing to remember when changing an image’s resolution from 72 ppi to a printable resolution is to uncheck the Resample Image checkbox at the bottom of the dialog box. If the box is checked, you will pixelate your image and it will be unusable.

The most important thing to remember about image size is the resolution is not important – the total pixels are. The resolution can be changed, but the total pixels need to stay the same to avoid pixelation. A 3000×4000 pixel 72 ppi image can be changed to 300 ppi, but the 3000×4000 pixels must NOT be changed. There are techniques to get around this in a pinch, but changing the amount of pixels should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

To figure out the measurement of the picture in inches, you will need to divide the number of pixels by the resolution. A 3000×4000 pixel image at 72 ppi will be roughly 41.6″x55.5″. When the image is changed to 300 ppi, it will be 10″x13.3″.

And remember…not all images need to be printed at 300 ppi. It really depends on the project and the printer.

New Mythology Blog

Posted on Categories Miscellaneous, WritingTags

I know, I know, it’s been a while since I last posted here.

For the last month, I’m been concentrating on a new project. Since I was a small child, I’ve had an interest in mythology. Over the last couple of years, my interest has gradually been rekindled, and as a result I have started a new blog. My new blog, Myths of the World, is a quiet little place for me to share my thoughts about various myths, legends, and folklore from around the world. I will be writing articles about legendary creatures, comparative religion, mythology-related archaeology, cryptozoology, and just about anything else I feel is relevant.

The purpose of this blog is not to pass judgment on the truthfulness of any mythologies or belief systems, but to simply spread information. For the moment, I am posting one article every week, but eventually I would like to increase that number.

Wishing to keep Myths of the World separate from Artistic Imposter Design, I am hosting the new blog with Blogger. In the future I may purchase a domain, but Blogger is good enough for now. The URL for Myths of the World is https://mythsoftheworld.blogspot.com.