Your Nerdy Best Friend

Need a custom cartoon for your marketing? ToonDoo makes it easy — and free! They have hundreds of stock backgrounds, clipart and people, or you can create your own images. My masterpiece (above) took about 45 minutes. You can create online cartoons or buy a high-res version for marketing use. Way cool and super fast.

Nerd Life by askbethz – ToonDoo – Worlds fastest way to create cartoons!.

My experience as a copywriter revealed to me the secret insecurities that many people have about their writing. Incredibly intelligent people with excellent communication skills would cringe when they handed me a first draft of a piece they wanted me to shape.

With visions of former English teachers in their heads, they fretted about grammar, spelling and word choice, forever concerned that they were making the mistakes that they made when they were in school.

Most of the time, they had nothing to worry about, but a clever, anonymous tool can help restore a writer’s confidence, no matter his level.

Just paste text into a text box at www.PaperRater.com and receive instant feedback about spelling, grammar, word choice and more. It’ll even analyze your sentence structure and vocabulary use to give you an overall grade, just like your English teacher used to give.

Designed to help students improve their writing, this tool is completely free and a little addictive. I ran several of my published pieces through the analysis and was surprised by the little errors I had missed.

Oh, and I ran this post through PaperRater — I earned a “B.” Harumph. Paper Rater Blog Analysis.

Paper Rater: Free Online Grammar Checker, Proofreader and More.

An Ask Beth Z follower wrote in this morning with a quick question:

We are looking for a free program like Print Shop.
You know, the old program that would let you make cards, posters, fliers, etc…
Please Help! Thanks, Susan

Happy to help, Susan. Here’s a quick video review of PagePlus, a free alternative to Microsoft Publisher and Print Shop. These types of low-cost desktop publishing tools are great for producing quick brochures, office signs, business cards, etc. Have your own question for Your Nerdy Best Friend? Ask it now!