Category: Miscellaneous

DeviantArt and Fine Art America

BradOctober 22, 2016Digital art, Illustration, Miscellaneous, Photography, PrintDeviantArt, Fine Art America, portfolio, selling online, Social Networking

A couple of months ago, I created a Deviant Art profile to begin showing off my artwork and photography, and hopefully to begin selling a little bit as well. Since then, I have added over 70 works of art and photographs to my profile, most of which can be purchased as either prints or art gifts. Check out the slideshow below to see some of these works:

Shortly after creating my DeviantArt profile, I also created an account with fineartamerica.com, where I have begun uploading only the photography and artwork which I consider to be the very best. I also have prints and other items available to purchase from my Fine Art America profile.

Free Treasure Tomb and Wolf In The Fold Computer Wallpaper

BradMarch 21, 2016December 6, 2020Digital art, Gaming, Illustration, Miscellaneouscomputer wallpaper, Digital art, free downloads, gaming

Last week, I decided to repurpose the game art from Treasure Tomb and Wolf In The Fold and turn the art into computer wallpaper.

The wallpaper is now available from my Online Store in three sizes each: 1600×1200 pixels, 1920×1080 pixels, and 2560×1440 pixels. While there are many other screen sizes I could have created, these three sizes can be effectively scaled for use on either a 16:9 or 4:3 computer monitor. Users with 4:3 monitors will want to download the 1600×1200 file, while 16:9 users should choose from either of the other two sizes.

Visit my online store and download your free wallpaper now:

Florida Photoshop Training Workshops

BradFebruary 13, 2016External Articles, MiscellaneousAdobe, articles, blog, Duval County Public Schools, Florida, industry certification, LearnKey, Photoshop, training workshop

A couple of weeks ago, LearnKey sent me to Jacksonville, Florida, to help a group of teachers become certified in Adobe Photoshop CS6. I also had the opportunity in October to visit the same school district to train a different set of teachers in Photoshop CC. I had a great time, and I wrote a couple of articles about my training experience on the LearnKey blog:

October 22, 2015: Certification Training in Florida

Last week, I took a trip to Jacksonville, Florida, with LearnKey Sales Champion Scott Walker to train a group of teachers from Duval County Public Schools. The purpose of the three-day workshop was to help each teacher earn their Adobe Certified Associate certification in Photoshop CC. Most of the teachers hold certifications in previous versions of Photoshop, but had not been able to pass the CC certification test. Florida law requires that teachers be certified in the software they teach, so having a certification in a previous version is no longer enough.

When you use a piece of software on a near-daily basis, you come to think of yourself as an expert. The problem with this mentality is you fail to take into account that you are probably using the same tools day after day, never utilizing other features the software has to offer. You tend to forget how to use those features, and sometimes you even forget they exist. Our purpose was to re-introduce those features and help the teachers become comfortable enough to take the ACA exam.

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January 28, 2016: Duval County Public Schools Photoshop CS6 Training

A couple of months ago, Scott Walker and I took a trip to Florida to help high school teachers in Duval County Public Schools to become ACA certified in Photoshop CC. Last week, we found ourselves back in Duval helping a group of forty-seven middle school teachers become ACA certified in Photoshop CS6. When we arrived at the school Tuesday morning, we were also asked to introduce them to the IC3 training. By the end of the week, all but seven teachers had passed the Photoshop ACA exam, with several also receiving their IC3 certifications.

Unlike the group we worked with in October, many of the teachers in our training last week had never used Photoshop before. In fact, most of them were not even CTE teachers! It was a new experience working with people who were unfamiliar with the software, and it gave me a greater appreciation for what these teachers must go through every year when they are given a new group of students.

(Read more…)

New Position at LearnKey

BradMarch 1, 2014Miscellaneous, Web designFacebook, HTML, LearnKey, Twitter, Web design, YouTube

A couple of weeks ago, I was offered a new position at work. LearnKey‘s website administrator is leaving the company, so they asked if I would like to take over his job. My official title is Online Content and Social Media Manager.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks working with the former website admin to learn all the little eccentricities of LearnKey’s website and on Monday I go solo. We’re in the middle of a major site-wide redesign, so I will have plenty of time to become intimately familiar with our website and processes.

I’m still going to be responsible for creating mobile content for LearnKey, but along with the website I am also now partially responsible for LearnKey’s social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

I’m really excited about this new opportunity and the chance to work with some people who have been little more than names and faces to me up until now.

New Online Store

BradFebruary 1, 2014MiscellaneousWeb site

Those who have visited Artistic Imposter Design in the past week may have noticed a little something new – my online store.

While working with ebooks over the last couple of months, I discovered an extension for WordPress that creates an online store. Products can be either digital or physical, and all payments go through PayPal, so I don’t have to deal with credit cards or money transfers.

Since I’m just starting my online store, there are only a few products available. Right now, I’m only offering downloadable products – my ebooks and my fonts – but eventually I would like to expand into printed versions of some of my artwork.

The 10 Best iPad Jailbreak Apps and Tweaks

BradAugust 23, 2011Miscellaneousapps, iPad, jailbreak, software review

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

BradAugust 23, 2011Miscellaneousapps, iPad, software review

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

BradJuly 7, 2011Miscellaneous, Motion GraphicsLearnKey, motion graphics, YouTube

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.

Windows to the Soul eBook

BradMay 18, 2011Miscellaneous, Print, Publications, Writingebooks, Kindle, poetry, Print, writing

A couple of days ago, I decided to make my book of poetry, Windows to the Soul, available as an eBook in .epub format. The eBook is now available from GoodReads. I’ve also updated the Kindle version of Windows to the Soul, adding a Table of Contents and fixing some of the formatting issues I’ve discovered.