GrindSmart Magazine has partnered up with some of the people who run ShareDen.com to announce our latest GIVEAWAY! We’re going to giveaway a 16GB Wi-Fi 3G iPad to One lucky winner on May 1st 2010.

Our only requirements is that you comment and subscribe to GrindSmart Magazine and that’s it! One lucky winner will be chosen on March May 1st 2010 in absolute random order!

YOU CAN ONLY POST ONE COMMENT PER SUBSCRIBER. IF YOU HAVE ENTERED MORE THAN ONE COMMENT TO THIS GIVEAWAY, THEY WERE ALL DELETED AND YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO ENTER ANY OTHER CONTEST.

The iPad comes with a crystal clear 9.5 inch screen with a 1024-by-768-pixel resolution that was designed for browsing and reading eBooks. It also weighs 1.5 ounces, is .05 inch thick, and comes with a built-in 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive. This is where the price splits, since the basic 16GB iPad starts at $499. Even though it resembles that of the iPhone, we can assure you that the iPad is much more. Here’s why. The larger screen size will allow you to view applications with a lot more freedom, and you’re able to websites as you would on a laptop with minimal restrictions. The onscreen keyboard is extremely easy to type on, and resembles that of a laptop in terms of size. Whereas the iPhone’s keypad is sometimes difficult to work around.

A large part of the controversy surrounding the iPad has to do with the fact that it’s not running OS X or anything similar to that. It seems to be operating out of an iPhone-like OS except it’s more advanced. The applications are streamlined from the Apple App Store right to the iPad and it’s capable of running almost every applications that already works on the iPhone as well. However, the apps will be resized to fit the full screen resolution or scaled down to resemble the iPhone’s screen.

With the iPad you’re able to sync it with iTunes and when it comes to wireless connectivity, there are two different versions that are available. One relies upon WiFi-entirely, and the other can is free to roam the web with 3G connectivity. The difference is mostly in price, you don’t need a contract, and it will be shipped unlocked so that you’re able to use it with other carriers (besides AT&T). Unlimited data plans for AT&T start at $29.99/month.

Disclaimer

We are providing one GrindSmart Magazine feed subscriber who comments a completely free 16GB Wi-Fi 3G iPad plus shipping. The winner will be contacted with the email provided when they comment for shipping arrangements. GrindSmart is not an affiliate of AT&T and we will not set-up any sort of connectivity plan with any mobile carrier. It is the winner’s responsibility to provide their iPad Internet connectivity if desired.

Today we’re announcing our latest GIVEAWAY! The Ultimate Collection of Books for Web Designers! Because reading up on new standards, practices, and professional insight on design is important and in some cases vital, we’ve decided to giveaway 5 MUST READ web design books for designers/developers that touch base on subjects such as Logo Design, Usability, Typography, Freelancing, and more! Five lucky winners will be announced on March 24 2010.

Our only requirements is that you comment and subscribe to GrindSmart Magazine and that’s it! 5 lucky winners will be chosen on March 24th in absolute random order!

Here’s what you’re getting:

The Complete Manual of Typography

This book is about how type should look and how to make it look that way; in other words, how to set type like a professional. It releases the craft knowledge that used to reside almost exclusively in the heads of people working in type shops. The shops are gone, the technologies have changed, but the goal remains the same. This book explains in very practical terms how to use today’s computerized tools to achieve that secret of good design: well-set type.

Logo Design Workbook: A Hands-On Guide to Creating Logos

Throughout the book is laced with various logos and there is a brief examination of each in terms of the context of the various chapters. The depth of the topic feels as if the authors have only been able to gloss over various areas in order to meet the constraints of the book, but the brevity is more than made up by the value of the questions they’ve posed that should enable a designer to conduct their own research into creating a strong logo. As well the case studies offer a variety of perspectives from different designers providing a well rounded and interesting look into the design process. This book will prove useful to designers who need to determine and define the criteria that goes into making a successful logo that will help their clients meet their goals.

Prioritizing Web Usability

After more than a decade of Web usability research, we literally have thousands of guidelines for making better websites. But what are the most important ones that all designers need to know? That’s what this new book is about.

A second goal of the book is to update the early Web usability guidelines I published in the 1990s. All the guidelines found since 2000 continue to hold, but what about findings from the studies we conducted 1994 to 1999? The book compares these old studies with more recent ones and explains which of the old guidelines should still be followed.

The Unlimited Freelancer

Freelancing doesn’t have to be a daily struggle. You too can build the business of your dreams — the business that you wanted to have in the first place. Sure, it takes hard work, but you’re probably already used to that anyway. By using the proven strategies in this book you’ll be running a successful business in less time than you thought possible.

The ideas we’ll show you in The Unlimited Freelancer can even help you expand from a successful freelance business into a larger, multi-person company (if that’s your goal). These are tactics that have been used by companies around the globe to increase productivity, earnings, and growth. [From FreelanceFolder.com]

The Smashing Book

The Smashing Book is a printed book about best practices in modern Web design. The book shares technical tips and best practices on coding, usability and optimization and explores how to create successful user interfaces and apply marketing principles to increase conversion rates. It also shows how to get the most out of typography, color and branding so that you end up with intuitive and effective Web designs. And lastly, you will also get a peek behind the curtains of Smashing Magazine.

Please Note: Results will be given on March 24th and winners will be randomly chosen using Random.Org services. Good Luck!

UPDATE: ShareDen Re-Design

As the web grows and we find the need to upload and share information with others there are only a few set of only tools that can help upload, host, and share your content for free. Here we have ShareDen.com, is the first file hosting site geared towards designers and developers. They will not only host your images (like DeviantArt) but they will host your Photoshop files, applications, coding files, scripts, zips, audio, applications, and anything else you can think of. With ShareDen you can upload and host an unlimited amount of files. Files such as the following are allowed: .php, .html, .mp3, .psd, .ttf, .otf, .zip, and more!

You don’t have to sign-up to upload and share files, and best of all the service is completely free. However, if you sign up you’re able to create folders and image galleries with your files for later use. ShareDen is a free hosting service for designers, developers, and creatives, what better way to upload and share your files then within an online community of designers. You will also receive free around the clock technical support, for more information you can also contact them here info[at]ShareDen.com

Sign-Up today and begin hosting all of your files with unlimited space!

Every day people use social media to inform and make themselves known on the web. And now designers are using social venues to get their names out on the forefront. With the massive amounts of time spent socializing on the web, you can only expect to have a set of tools to help you. This is why we’ve compiled 7 Best Social Media Tools for Designers. This list will help you save time, get your name out, socialize, make friends, and bring in more clients.

Socialite

Socialite solely operates on Mac machines. This app integrates the top 5-6 social networks into one usable and easy to access program.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air application that allows you to quickly organize and place imporatance on your tweets. You can group tweets based on search terms, time frame, and so on…

Spokeo

Search over 41 different social media networks for any and all sorts of information. It’s as simple as that.

Stribe

Stribe lets you instantly create a social network on any website. Users will be connected with your community on any website with Stribe. It is totally customizable and you have freedom to change colors, fonts and background.

CROWDFusion

Crowd Fusion is a publishing platform that combines several popular applications – like blogging, wikis, tagging and work-flow management – with some original concepts.

UserVoice

UserVoice can help track and manage the feedback of your clients or customers. Users will be able vote on the ideas of other users, you’ll be able to get quality suggestions and opinions on you projects as well as applications.

Get Satisfaction

Get Satisfaction provides you with a forum where your customers are able to get answers to questions, solutions to problems, and submit feature and new product requests. Those answers and solutions are stored and searchable over time, cutting down on support costs and building trust with your user-base.