The Positively Positive

Hi folks!

Once again, I’m trying to expand a little bit and this entry is a guest post from Kyle, the Guitar Lessons Critic. After playing guitar for over 12 years, he’s purchased dozens of courses and memberships and written real, unbiased guitar lesson reviews. This post focuses on JamPlay, his #1 rated private lesson’s alternative. I hope y’all enjoy the post.

Let’s be frank. Not every one is John Mayer. Sure, he is arguably one of the greatest guitarists of the 21st century and an infamous example of the “self-taught” learner, but not everybody can just pick up the guitar and play.

Mayer has inspired a new nation of guitar enthusiasts and a new way of thinking. Private music lessons are no longer the only fundamental way to learn the guitar. As a result, hundreds if not thousands of self-taught or self-starter guitar lesson products exist on the Web today.

…But that does not mean all of them are reliable, dependable, informative or even accurate.

That is why Guitar Lessons Critic was established. It was designed to create a fair and completely unbiased look at the very best in alternative methods to learning the guitar. I have found that while the good far outweighs the bad, there are always a few bad apples in every category. I have also found that JamPlay is quite possibly one of the greatest alternative methods to private guitar lessons.

JamPlay is best described as a very large community that was designed for guitarists by guitarists. Beginners come here to learn how to become better musicians. For a very minimal monthly fee ($19.95 a month compared to an average of $16-$24 p/30 minutes for a private lesson), members receive unlimited access to 1,000+ HD-quality guitar lesson videos from professional musicians, community support, chord and scale libraries and live lessons.

Some online guitar resources simply go for quantity at the sake of quality, but JamPlay’s 42 different instructors is both incredibly diverse and incredibly valuable. Not only is the selection of instructors large, but users can also select a teacher based on a particular genre (anything from country to metal) and can be assured that these people are among the leaders in guitar education.

Following the standard formula of online guitar resources, JamPlay allows users to access the site and its lessons anytime they so desire. This is obviously one of the strongest selling points over private lessons in which you are at the mercy of the instructor’s own schedule.

However, were most extensive video lesson libraries leave off (and ultimately fall short), JamPlay thrives by providing a real, active community in which members may connect with other users. The directory is quite extensive, as 10,000+ members are active and over 20,000+ guitarists have used JamPlay at some point.

The forum is very well organized and is not your traditional time waster in which you need to spend 10 to 20 minutes shuffling through the fluff to find something of value. Spam, racist and other comments are non-evident which is nice for a change of pace.

I could rave about JamPlay’s numerous other features, from the advanced or often overlooked (live webcast lessons, backing tracks) to the subtle yet resourceful (guitar tuner, metronome, chord libraries) but the simple fact is you just need to get connected to really appreciate everything JamPlay has to offer.

Ultimately, it’s not easy to create a single product that can include everything in the world of guitar. Each program has its flaws, but when you need a very well centered resource that honestly strives to provide something for every one, JamPlay is the spot.

Interested in writing a guest post for The Positively Positive? Drop me a line on the contact page and let me know what you’re interested in reviewing and why.

I subscribe to a lot of blogs that are about blogging, but so far I haven’t really checked out too many that focused more on the technical side of things. Everything I read tends to be about how to write well and keep your readers happy, that sort of thing.

So when I was asked to take a look at a site all about web hosting, I was curious to see how it would be different from all the other sites I subscribed to. Webhostingfan.com, as the name suggests, is about the topic of web hosting, but it discusses a lot more. They update the site daily with tips about everything from SEO marketing to E-commerce, giving advice on how to run your site more effectively and how to understand your web hosting service. Since I’m still a newbie to all this, I found the site very helpful.

They also have a page full of nothing but web hosting reviews. Allowing you to read all about a particular site before you choose to sign up with their service. I really wish that I had known about their reviews before I signed up with my current web hosting service. Not that I’ve had any trouble with it, but I remember walking into the whole blogging idea with no clue what a hosting service even was. I managed to slog through by constantly pestering my (very patient) friends who were more knowledgeable in the subject. But boy, having access to this site could have made things a lot easier on me…..and on them. LOL.

Overall I found their updates to be pretty very easy to understand and the instructions (on things like how to install an FTP accunt) were easy to follow as well. Even for someone as inept at this stuff as I am.

In the interest of full disclosure….

I originally started The Positively Positive as a place to post reviews of my favorite tv shows that did something other than complain about how horrible the show was. For a while there it felt like every online forum I visited, even those for so-called “fans” did nothing but flame the shows they were talking about. I wanted a place where people could come and read about their favorite shows and not have to deal with flamers.

Within a couple months, that changed. First off I don’t just review tv shows, I now review pretty much anything that interests me and makes a good impression on me – books, conventions, amusement parks, toys, websites, you name it.

Now another new change has come about recently. I am actually starting to (gasp!) make money at this and, well, turns out there are rules about this stuff and one of them is that I have to actually tell y’all about it. I have no problem with that, in fact I’m happy to tell my tale.

As y’all can probably see, I have links to various sites on my blog. If people click on the links and/or buy stuff, I make money. Not a whole heck of a lot yet, but hey, one can dream right? I also occasionally get free stuff (like books to read) so I can write a review. Another way I make (again not much) money is by doing (another gasp!) sponsored reviews. Now before you get your feathers ruffled, let me point out that I never, ever say anything untrue or don’t believe, from the bottom of my heart, on this site.

Plenty of people get paid to write reviews of products (or get free products to do so), but not everyone writes ONLY positive reviews. How do I do it? Well, the truth is that I turn down offers. All the time. Nearly every day in fact. You see, if I don’t like a product, or simply have no interest in it, then I don’t accept an offer to get paid to write about it. Rest assured, everything I write about is something that I’ve checked out myself and every positive thing I say about it is what I really believe.

Now does that mean if you offer to pay for a review and I refuse, that your product/website, etc is “bad”? Heck no! It just means that it’s not something that I’m interested in. For instance if you’d like me to write a review about an orthodontist office in another state, I’m probably gonna have to say no thanks. Just because, what on earth could I say about it if I’ve never been there?

Other than that though, I’m open to writing a review for just about anything! So bring on the offers!

…Oops, I’m not supposed to try and sell myself with my disclosure page, am I? Oh well. ;o)

I was asked to check out another helpful website, this time from the folks over at Savings. com.

Looks like a great site. They offer ways to save at lots of major companies, everything from Old Navy coupons to The Shack coupons and Savings Car Rental Coupons

You can find more Enterprise Coupons here or just go straight to the Enterprise Car Rental site.

Some of them have to be printed, some are codes to be used when shopping online and some are just information about sales, no coupon needed.

Overall I found the site very useful and totally recommend y’all check it out.

The folks as WP Rex asked me to take a look at their free wordpress templates and I gotta say that I am impressed. They have a huge selection of free themes available but also offer services to create custom themes as well. The site it super easy to use and the themes themselves are quite impressive.

Check them out. 🙂

More from The Positively Positive…
Review – Dish Network
Review – Microsoft Hohm
Supernatural, Season 5, episode 17 “99 Problems”
NCIS, Season 7, episode 19 “Guilty Pleasure”