Tag Archives: free

Open source Craigslist clone

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A few days ago I had the urge to start a new project aimed at college students. I recall hearing someone say that they wished there was a place for them to find people to “hook-up” with on campus. That got me thinking about Craigslist, but with a twist. Instead of the site being devoted to a geographical location such as a city, my site would be targeted at a specific campus. Once I got the initial idea I had to find some software to implement (why reinvent the wheel?). I tried a few different “Craigslist clone scripts” and the like, but none of them offered what I was looking for. I needed the site to be simple and clean, but also easily manageable. After searching for a few hours I came across OSClass.

If WordPress’ admin UI is a 8/10 in terms of look and functionality, OSClass’ would be a 9 or 10. It is simply fantastic.You can control everything from the easy to use control panel that is very intuitive. So far I haven’t done much more work with the idea, and probably never will. But I was able to tinker around with some cool software, and maybe one day I will implement it for my campus. All I would need to do at this point is buy a domain name (I don’t feel like using a subdomain of willstare.com) and away I will go. I don’t know how much demand there would be for such a site, but people usually have a way of finding innovative uses for things given the opportunity to use it.

So go check out OSClass, you will be very impressed.

osclass front
Main page of my OSClass site.

management 1 osclass
Main dashboard page in the admin panel.

oc class statistics
Some statistics and graphs about the site.

How to use your domain with Gmail (no Google Apps required)

domain.com

So I was looking for a solution for using a Gmail account with my domain (willstare.com). After finding out that the free version of Google Apps is no longer offered to new customers, I was forced to come up with my own solution. I knew that Gmail allowed users to have an ‘alias address’ to send and receive from, but that required an active email account to work (for verification). Here’s what I did to get around that requirement.

Go to your domain host (I use domain.com), and configure a new email forwarder. You do not need to make an email account, only a forwarder. Forward the email address that you would like to create (ex: test@willstare.com) and point it to a Gmail account (ex: test.willstare@gmail.com). After doing that, make your Gmail account, and login. Open the settings and select Accounts and Import. Then select ‘Send mail as:’ and add your test account that you set up earlier (test@willstare.com).

Now it will require a verification email to be sent to confirm that you own the email account. Because you have already configured the email address to forward to your Gmail account, it will arrive in your inbox, technically confirming that you ‘own’ that address. Enter the verification number, and you should be set. This worked for me, I hope it helps others.