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.

It’s not too late to do something a little special for your Valentine, thanks to these three free tools:

1. Send A Tagxedo Heart
   Get creative with a word art graphic from Tagxedo with key words about the one you love.
   
2. Record an Eyejot Email Video
   Eyejot is a super cool site that lets you create quick video messages to send via email.
   
3.  Customize a Candy Heart
   Use the Candy Heart Generator to create your own message on the classic candy heart!
   

Happy New Year!

If you’re like me (and most of the country), you’re probably making promises to yourself that this year you’ll eat less, move more and work more effectively.

Yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard it (and done it) all before. But I just discovered a tool that may help! Experts say it takes 21 days to make or break a habit, and 21habit is a simple tool to help you through it.

You set up a goal to do (or not do) something every day, and every day for 3 weeks you’ll get an email or check in at the website to report on your progress.

A free plan has no real ramifications, but sign up in Committed Mode, and you invest $21 toward your challenge. Every day you succeed, you get a buck back. If you fail (or don’t check in for three days), you lose a buck. Your money will be donated to a list of 21habit charities.

I’m committing to start getting in shape for my marathon (read the very important reason I’m doing it here), so I’ll report back to you in 21 days on my progress!

21habit

MailChimp has definitely become my favorite newsletter provider for my business newsletters, and since they have a robust free level, I have often recommended the service to individuals who just need a quick newsletter — like when they’re raising money for charity by running a marathon and want to be able to share their journey with friends and family.

But for individuals, MailChimp pointed out that its software can be overkill. Why design a whole newsletter when all you really need is a nice group email blast? So MailChimp made TinyLetter a part of its company. TinyLetter is a free group email blast program that lets you create a mailing list and a simple newsletter. The marriage of those two companies makes MailChimp the perfect go-to provider for free and super-bargain newsletters for anyone.

Watch the following video for an overview of how easy it is to create a newsletter with TinyLetter.

This morning I was using StumbleUpon to discover new tools, and I happened upon PhotoFunia. What fun it is! The site has a bunch of backgrounds onto which you can impose your own pictures, making it seem like people are looking at your portrait in a gallery or passing you on a billboard.

It’s free, of course, and very, very easy to use. This video shows how I created a fun graphic in less than 50 seconds.

PhotoFunia

San Diego real estate broker Kimberly Dotseth turned me on to one of the coolest bargain sites I’ve seen in a long time. Fiverr lets people put up offers to do a kabillion creative, fun jobs for a fiver — five bucks. Here’s a sample of products and services you can buy for five bucks:

• Create a simple banner ad
• Write a customized limerick
• Make a tough decision for you
• Tweet your message to thousands of followers
• Record a voice over in a native British accent
• Add music to your video 
• Send your child a personalized letter from Santa Claus
• Create a QR Code
• And on, and on and on… Hilarious and fun!

It’s no secret that many, many awesome people have found themselves dusting off their resumes and setting off on a job hunt during this challenging economic period. I ran across JobSpice, an easy, fast way to import your LinkedIn profile into their fields and create a basic, downloadable resume within minutes. You need to watch my 2-minute video to see how easy it is!

Get the book! Upgrade to Free: The Best Free and Low-Cost Online Tools and Apps is just ten bucks on Amazon.com!

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!

Here’s an easy, fast way to share a file. Just upload a file, and within seconds you have a link to the online version to share with colleagues. Seconds, I tell you. I just uploaded the latest version of the Quick Reference Guide… feel free to download and share!

Credit card machines for small businesses can be expensive and a hassle, and often you have to enter into a contract with a company for the equipment and the service. But if you’re a small business like me, a super-easy credit card reader like Square may be just the ticket.

Square is a tiny little card reader that slips into the audio port of your Android phone, iPhone or iPad. You set up a free account, get a free reader and can start swiping cards immediately. The system is linked to your bank account, and the money transfers in the next day. They charge no setup or maintenance fees, and take just 2.75% out of every transaction. They’ll even help you calculate and keep track of sales tax.

I’ve been practicing with the reader by charging the price of my book on my husband’s credit card. He doesn’t know it yet, but he is going to have plenty of copies to give away for Christmas.

Watch my full review here: