Just out of curiousity, Brad - what's your class site and what's it look like these days? I assume you're still the administrator, or do you share those duties now? Do you find yourself playing with all the widgets and thingy-ma-bobs we all talk about, too?!

Thanks for asking Kimmy.

Oddly enough, I have never been a Site Administrator. When asked to create a site for my own class, I was asked to create it for a Classmate (Amy) who would be running it.

In fact that's probably a good thing, because had I just been setting it up myself, I would never have created the tools to allow Amy to run the site herself.

Well, long story short, because I had created the tools to give Amy control over our class' site, it was relatively easy to turn on more class sites when I started getting requests from my Classmates' spouses. So I started happily turning on all of these sites, not thinking much about it really, when one day it occurred to me that if I added a setup wizard to the process that people could do all of this stuff themselves without having to call me every time somebody wanted a site...

So, I added the site creation wizard and the rest is history really. The thing just started going crazy and now a couple hundred thousand Classmates are in the system and we don't even promote this thing other than a couple nominal Google ads. 9 out of 10 Administrators who build sites every day are coming from word of mouth.

So that's the story... Where will this go next? Who knows -- can't wait to find out.

Thanks for sharing!

I'm no computer wiz for sure, and can't wait to play with all the plug-ins and add-ons everyone talks about. I've been SO engrossed with planning our reunion (next weekend) that I haven't had much time to play on the site. I will after it's all said and done and can't wait to add our slideshow (to be built this weekend - geez! Talk about under the gun!) and the reunion photos.

Thanks again for a great site and very 'user' friendly. I'm sure you don't hear that nearly often enough as you should... and I'm sure it never gets old!

Brad,

Is your site at http://www.classcreator.com/Agate-CO-Agate-JrSr-2005/?

I remember seeing your name in the classmate profiles section. Is this just a sample website (where you can show the patriotic page)? I remember seeing a picture under your profile of someone and Hillary Clinton. There was also a YouTube video of a trip to Jamaica (I assumed it was you and your wife). Your profile on this website is now protected.

Heh, too funny. You know I really didn't think anybody would find/get to that site, but you guys are good, I tell ya.

That "Your High School" site you got into is just my test site where I sometimes work on things, test things, sometimes even paste in code that you guys are having trouble with so I'm working on it on a test site instead of live on your own site.

In any case, I'm glad you pointed that out, because it's probably better nobody be in there but me. So I just put a password on it.

And no, I've never been to Jamaica before, nor has my wife. We'd be most happy to go, however.

On that website there is a sample "First Time Visitors" template. If you password protect the website, that template will not be available. I used that website as the model for my "First Time Visitors" page.

Also, that website is pointed to in the forums as an example of the "Patriotic Page" that shows a patriotic background and has sample code that can be copy/pasted into the "In Memory" page to have a flag background. If you password protect this page, it will not be available - even if it is linked to in the forums.

You didn't answer if that was you in the picture that I saw with Hillary Clinton.

Anyway, if you are password protecting your test site, you should still have a place that can be the SAMPLE site where these items (patriotic background & "First Time Visitors" template, the picture of Hillary doesn't matter to me) can be posted. This SAMPLE website should also be posted in the FAQ document.

Brad,

Thought you might be interested in where I found out about Classcreator.

I get a newsletter from PC Pitstop. They offer pc tips, trends and special offers..

In one of them was a tip about building your own school reunion web site.

http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2008/08/20/august-2008-newsletter-2/

That was my lucky day.. Thanks, Lynda

Thanks Kyle, good point, I did link those two pages to the forums so I unpassword protected them. Someday we're gunna have to make you forum moderator.

Is that me with Hillary Clinton? As a matter of fact it is. But I should probably point out that just a couple days later I had photos taken of myself with Barack Obama and John McCain. I happened to be in a small town in Iowa last year where all 3 major candidates were coming through, so I went and met them all.

So, how do we get to them? Your "laboratory" pages, where possible, might be wonderful inspiration for those of us who aren't so inspired. Thanks.

Ellen Reddick wrote:

First time visitors : http://www.classcreator.com/Agate-CO-Agate-JrSr-2005/class_custom2.cfm

Patriotic Website: http://www.classcreator.com/Agate-CO-Agate-JrSr-2005/class_custom7.cfm

Thanks!

I wish I had found the site before we hired an event planner for our upcoming reunion. This site could have provided us the tools we were missing... mostly a private place to reunite with the classmates and plan the reunion.

I can't say this enough, thank you for making this available to us.