One of the key features is the ability to control the volume levels of the guitar on one track and the rest of the instruments (vocals/drums/bass) on another track. For instance, you can turn off the guitar track so that you can only hear the drums, vocals, and bass to jam along with. Or, if you wanted to learn how to play a guitar solo, you can listen to the guitar part by itself. It also features a slow mode which plays back the music down at half speed to help with learning. It keeps the music at the same pitch in the slower speed, which is a nice touch. There is also a synchronized tablature page that will show you what frets to hold down while the music is playing. You can also review your learning progress by using the recording mode.

As an experienced guitar player, I found some minor flaws with the application. First, the volume levels quiet down significantly when you enable the recording mode. This makes it hard to match up your guitar playing with the original recording. I would have preferred to have separate set of track levels for both playback and recording modes. There is also missing notation on the tablature for slides and bending of notes, which is noted in the “stuff you should know” section. Another thing to consider is the limited availability of songs — there are only 3 songs per game. They are planning to release several versions of the game for different rock genres and bands including White Zombie, Sum 41, Fall Out Boy, Tracy Lawrence, and many more.

Overall, this application does a good job at teaching you how to play songs on the guitar. It is a lot more fun learning to play songs with this app than using sheet music. The synchronized tablature/notation page is my favorite feature. One feature I would like to see is the ability for the tablature notes to flash when it is being played. I also liked the ability to control the levels of the songs for easy learning, especially since the tracks are from the original master recording. It is nice to play along with the original band recording, especially if you are fans of the music. This is an excellent app for people who are looking at new ways for learning how to play the guitar.

PROS: The songs are the original master recordings, synchronized tablature page, ability to record own guitar tracks, ability to change the levels of the original guitar track and the mix without the guitar, slow mode, an innovative way to learn guitar

CONS: Limited song selection, recording mode volume too low, missing notation for bends and slides, the app ignores the mute switch on the phone, uses a lot of power, no in-game purchase of additional songs.

*****

Jammit: Classic Rock Guitar Vol. 1 is available for $6.99 in the App Store.

View my review in the iProng magazine

Wordpress MU Control Panel

WordPress introduced a new version of its multi-user blog software in January 2009. I have been using version 2.6 for the past few months and it was working well, although the site management was very confusing to use. Version 2.7 fixes this problem by making the Site Admin menu more uniform with the main dashboard.

The Site Admin is now located on the left hand menu, which is much easier to access than 2.6. (previously on the right side of the control panel. There are six options: Admin, Blogs, Users, Themes, Options, and Upgrade. Pretty straight-forward.

Admin: Create new blogs
Blogs: View each of the blogs, its users, links to edit/de-activate
Users: Manage what each of the users can see/edit/role
Themes: Themes available for blogs.
Site Options: Security/Global settings for WordPress
Upgrade: This is used to upgrade the WordPress version on the individual blogs. You still need to manually copy the latest version of WordPress MU into the folder when a new version comes out. In contrast, the standalone WordPress has a button that will automatically fetch the source and install the latest version for you.

What I like about the new version:
A lot of the things I like about WordPress 2.7, I like it on WordPress MU. Major Upgrades with 2.7 vs. 2.6 include: QuickPress publishing features for quick posting, 1 click upgrade, and all new navigation system on the dashboard.

Site Themes Control Panel

 

Quick Post Feature

There is also redundant menu options on the top menu in WordPress MU. This allows you to quickly switch between different blogs. So, switching between blogs is a one click process vs. a multiple click previously in 2.6. 

Top Toolbar for WordPress MU

Verdict:
WordPress MU 2.7 is definitely worth considering with the new dashboard layout. The main advantage of having MU is that you have the ability to control the settings of all blogs. You can control what themes can be used, ban certain email addresses from registering, control permissions, and set the default welcome email. There is a built-in quota manager for each blog, so you can limit the disk space usage of all blogs. You can also limit the types of files that a user can upload on a blog — such as limiting attachments to PDF, Word Documents, or images. Another advantage of the MU is that you only need to upgrade the blog software in 1 place for several blogs. User management is good, but there still needs to be a way to add a user to multiple blogs in one screen. 

Overall, WordPress MU 2.7 is great resource if you need to support several blogs (blog network) and are a fan of the standalone WordPress software.
WordPress MU Support Forums
http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/

WordPress MU Download
http://mu.wordpress.org/download/