Q: ..where can I get an accurate assessment to my skill level..?
A: Keep playing. Over time your rating will reflect your true standing relative to the people playing on the same server.
Q: ..and what my strengths and weaknesses are?
A: Review your own games.
Q: ..a good plan of making it from beginner to intermediate with a good knowlege base?
A: Practice, read chess books, and discuss chess with other people.
We all started there, don't be too discouraged! Some players may seem brilliant and shrug off moves as mundane that you think are amazing. The part of the picture you're not seeing is the thousands of hours of hard work, and the thousands of lost games they've learned from. I'm sure it's no exaggeration that for every chess move you've ever played I've lost at least 10 games of chess 
And I can still play games online where I'm crushed and I'm not sure when I went wrong to get such a bad position :)
Anyway, this has some good info and is well organized:
http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory
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As for ratings, don't worry about that... also each site has a different pool of players. Being 2200 on chesscube isn't the same as 2200 on ICC. Chessmentor and tactics trainer on this site (and your phone version of shredder) have their own individual estimations that almost never match up to (inter)national "over the board" ratings like USCF or FIDE.
Thank you for the response, I think the biggest thing is im not analyzing my games.
Analysing is good, having a stronger player read your thoughts about the game and then give you theirs is even better. Especially if you're just beginning you don't know where to start with a game. This forum has an analysis section you can post to. Be willing to accept criticism! (but not rude people ;)
One funny thing about analysis is you'll find some moves you were proud of were blunders and some moves you thought were poor were actually good :)
I'm in the same boat as the OP...
Can I ask...for a beginner...is it a good policy to try to match the attacks on a piece with defense?
For example...in very basic terms is it good in the opening of the game to have...well let's say your pawn is threatened by 2 different pieces...to also have 2 different pieces covering it?
I just realised in typing this out...that there's no real answer for that.
Anyway...
Well if there's a piece that has two attackers on it, and it doesn't have at least 2 defenders, then your opponent can win that pawn or piece... so yes unless you can make a bigger threat and cause him to forget about winning it for a move, then you're practically forced to match the number of attackers with defenders.
One example may be, he threatens to win your pawn, but you improve a piece's position with a threat of checkmate. He can't win your pawn, and has to take time out to defend against mate.
Moves that do 2 things for you are good, if more than 2 even better! So if you can defend the pawn 3 different ways, look for the most active defense. Maybe you can defend it and threaten checkmate.
Right...so is this a basic idea of an opening? To have your pieces supported? I know the answer's yes. Anyway...that's about the extent of my understanding.
The primary focus of any opening is to mobilize (called develop) your pieces as quickly as possible. Pawns aren't pieces in chess-speak by the way and also pawn moves don't count as developing moves. You do need to make a few pawn moves in the opening, almost always to claim some central space.
Space gives your pieces room to be mobile and central space is the most important because it can be used to mobilize to any part of the board.
So the primary ideas of the opening include:
Speed of development, contest the center, and get your king to safety.
But there is a chess saying "loose pieces fall off" so yes, in general when strong players play they will have very few pieces that are not defended at least once in any given position. The ones they leave completely undefended for any length of time are usually so far away from the action that it doesn't matter.
Thanks paul : )
Qutuck, did you notice that a grandmaster offered to analyse your games for you? I would seriously take up that offer.
Backround info-
My grandfather taught me how to play chess years ago, when I was just a boy, and bought me a nice red and white stained wood chess set. Him and my father had problems and due to that I could no longer play with my grandpa and stopped playing altogether. A month or so ago I picked up chess again and read bobby fischer teaches chess, and thought it was a great book. I now have an account here on chess.com and watch the videos for beginners and go through the chess mentor starting with the easiest first..
Well getting to the point, I play shredder chess on my phone and it rates me around 12-1300, and chess mentor is rating me around 1500. on chess tempo i was around 1100. but on chess.com i cant beat even 1100 players.. and in the beginner videos I dont know the openings or defenses, I was told that is not the route to improving in chess.
Anyways, Just thought i would share my frustrations, of how i realized how unskilled i actually was at this game. Does anyone know where i can get an accurate assesment to my skill level, and what my strengths and weaknesses are? and a good plan of making it from beginner to intermediate with a good knowlege base?
any responses are welcome, feeling very frustrated but im not going to give up on this great "game".