This site, the directory, and
all the services provided here are 100% FREE!
and are not paid for by advertising, or spam. If you want to make
sure it all stays that way, please SPREAD THE WORD since without lots of money to advertise, we rely on word-of
mouth to get people to find us.
So if you think this site is a
good idea, and want to help, please don't send money, just tell your
mates! Thanks!
As I receive them, I will compile a list of
help questions and answers here, but at present I don't think there's much
that isn't fairly self-explanatory. If you've got a question, Bug
me.
OK - this is fairly simple, but can get a bit geeky in a few bits, so here's some instructions to get you through it.
Basically, there's 2 steps:
1. Go and set up an account with Clickatell.
2. Enter your Clickatell account details into your Muso Black Book account.
So, here we go. STEP 1:
a) go to Clickatell account signup and enter the details the form asks for. Make sure that your email address and your mobile phone number are both correct, as that's where your account info will be sent to. Your mobile phone number must be in international format, that means, drop the leading '0' and add '61'. For example, my number, 0409311223 becomes 61409311223. Also don't put any spaces in the number. You only need to fill in the compulsory fields, the others can be left blank.
b) Click Submit (gee, really? Sorry, that was a bit patronising)
c) Wait for a few minutes, and you should receive an email containing three pieces of information - an "api-id", username, and password. Write these down - we'll need them later.
d) If you entered your mobile number correctly, you should also receive a confirmation code via an sms message to your mobile which you need to enter into the clickatell form which was displayed when you pressed submit. This will give you your 10 free sms messages, so it's worth doing. (So far I haven't received any spam - email or sms - from these guys, so I'd say it's pretty safe.)
That's Step 1 done, on to STEP 2:
a) Come back to the Muso Black Book site, and click "Login" (top right corner).
b) Enter your email address and your Muso Black Book password and click submit. If you got it right, you'll be taken back to the home page, and the Login link that you clicked before will change to your name.
c) Click on your name and you'll be taken to the edit account page. Scroll down to the bottom where it says "SMS Options"
d) Enter the api_id, username and password you got from Clickatell. Also make sure that your mobile phone number is entered and correct, as that will be sent with all your messages so that the muso you're contacting can call you back. Click the submit button and you're done!
That's it! Now each time you view a muso's profile, (and you're logged in) the link on their phone numbers will present you with a box to put your message and a send button. Your name and primary phone will be automatically filled in for you, along with a default message, all of which you can change.
I'd suggest you try sending yourself an SMS first to make sure that you've set it up correctly, if you don't get the sms pretty quickly (i.e. within about 1 minute), something's probably not quite right. Note that sometimes the first message sent to a phone can take a while to get through (up to about 5 minutes) so be patient with the first one. After that it should come through in about 15 seconds.
If you're still having trouble, email techsupport@musoblackbook.com and include your api_id, username and password for Clickatell and I'll try to sort it out for you.
How much does this SMS thing cost me?
OK here's the deal. Basically, all the sms messages are sent by a company called Clickatell, who handle all the billing etc. I'm not trying to make any money, so I just send everyone over there to get an account.
Signing up for an account automatically gives you 10 FREE SMS messages. After they're used up, you have to buy sms credits from Clickatell for about 7.5c (yes, I know that's much cheaper than it costs from your phone) using a credit card. From my experience they're very reliable and secure, so please consider this a "yeah they're a good bloke" recommendation.
I don't make any money or get any other kick-backs for recommending them, so if anyone knows of a better/cheaper provider feel free to let me know. The only reason I decided to recommend their stuff is because it's easy to integrate into this website.
So bottom line is, 10 free messages, then 7.5c per message after that.
I can't login!
OK, so it gives you an error of some sort. Here's what to do.
First, check, double-check and triple check your email address and password are correct. Note that both of these fields are case sensitive (i.e. "somepassword" is different to "SoMepASSworD"). Make sure you're using the right password by clicking the 'forgotten your password' link on the login page. Enter your email address to have it sent to you. To be sure to avoid typos, copy-and-paste your password from the email you get back into the login page. 99% of login failures are because of typos in the password and/or incorrect case of email/password.
If you're CERTAIN that your email and password are both correct, and you still can't get in, Bug Me to have a look at it and I'll try to figure out what's going on.
How do I search for musos?
To find a muso, click the "Search" link in the top right hand corner of the website. Then just enter the keyword to search for, eg. for a bass player, search for "bass", for a keyboard player try "keys", "piano" or "keyboard".
