Brad - just wanted to thank you for putting the map up showing where our classmates are located. You really went above and beyond! I played with it last night, and was amazed at zooming in to each classmate (especially in TN where there are so many classmates still living, it looked like just a bunch of bubbles until I zoomed it out far enough to see all the classmates) REALLY COOL!!! Thank you!

It is pretty cool indeed. You can thank Rick Root for that one. Right now the link is on all schools, but next week we'll be making it something admins can turn on or off, as some Internetational schools don't want it (it's currently mapping US Clasmates only).

How does that work? Is it available to any website?

The map link is on your home page. It's at the bottom of the "Where They Live" box on your home page.

Thanks Brad - found it. But I noticed that some of the classmates are not showing up on the map (like me). Is it taking a while to find all of the locations? By the way - do you sleep?

I'm putting in a programming ticket for Rick to investigate this. And no, I don't.

Thanks for the response. Good practice for your new addition.

Brad Switzer wrote:

Good practice for when the baby comes! lol

This shows the how Brad is the true entreprenuer. Develop a product that can be enhanced at some of the hardest hours of child caring.

Sleep is just a waste of time anyway.

jimmy1,

Technically speaking, you *ARE* on the map. Unfortunately because we're only plotting classmates based on zip code, *ALL* of your classmates in your zip code have a marker on the map on the exact same spot, and you can only see the one on top (probably whoever was last alphabetically in that zip code).

I'll have to work on a solution for that.

Would it help if you could locate using the 9 digit zip code?

The problem will be that the 'balloons' overlap so closely that it's really hard to click them. The Zip + 4 would help some.

A better possible solution would be to geocode based on the whole address. Probably will not alleviate the problem completely for those who actually live really close together, but it would help.

What if you just put the number of classmates in that state, then hyperlink to each individual classmate which would then expand out the address and location (example: 164 classmates in TN, hyperlinke on 164, and it would bring down a list of names in that state, click on their name and go to their location)? Just a thought. And...I don't know how I didn't know, but congrats on the baby!

Since the map's purpose is a more general view of where classmates live, it suits its purpose pretty well as is.

What I've done is that if more than one person lives in the same zip code, there will be only one marker, and it'll list the number of classmates in that zipcode and who they are.

Worked fairly nicely for jimmy1's class as I zoomed in on huntington beach, ca, and found a zipcode with 4 classmates.

that works! good, simple solution.

Nice work Rick. You've come up with a great solution. It is very reassuring to work with a product that has such great customer service and reliability. The world needs more people/companies like you guys.

I have a classmate in Virginia that is not showing up on the map. Any idea why she doesn't show up?

It's because you have no address in your system for Bobbie. Rick if somebody only lists a state, but does not enter an address at all, can we still show them on the map, or no?

The mapping mechanism is based on zip code in order to get latitude and longitude for the markers.

If we picked a "default" zip code for each state we could pull it off probably. Maybe choose a zip code in the capital of each state.