It's hard to believe it's been over 25 years since I first registered Tuccy.net. I bought the domain back in the spring of 2000. By that point, I was already on my third or fourth email address and decided it was time to set up a personal address I could use for the rest of my life.
Coming Soon... or not
Initially, I had no idea what to do with the domain other than use it for email. For years, anyone visiting Tuccy.net was probably greeted by a generic "Coming Soon" or a placeholder page from my web host. I considered using it as a personal website, but I figured I'd set up a subdomain for that if I ever got around to it. I also thought about creating a simple family history site, but I didn't have enough reliable research to make it worthwhile. So, I mostly ignored the web address and just used the domain for email.
An idea finally emerges
The idea for this site started to form when we got serious about digitizing my family's photo archives and I needed an effective way to share them. At first, I tried organizing everything through Google Photos, but that didn't work out well. My biggest issue was its lack of an index or guide for the albums I wanted to share. I tried plugging that gap with an associated Instagram account, but Instagram makes it difficult to share links.
Eventually, I concluded I'd be better off building a custom solution. Over the last few years, I've launched a couple of failed experiments at photos.tuccy.net. I thought I was close to a working site in late 2023, but I ran into technical limitations with the platform that I couldn't solve. (I'll write more about that some other time.) Distracted by other projects, the website drifted back down my to-do list.
Better living through self-hosting
A few months ago, I started exploring the world of open-source, self-hosted projects and was surprised by how mature and well-developed many of them are. While searching for a better way to manage my contacts, I stumbled across a project called Directus. As I mapped out a plan to use it for a new contact system, I realized it was not only capable of much more but could also provide the solution I'd been looking for to build the family site I had envisioned.
You could call it a light bulb moment. (Or, more aptly, a "Squirrel!" moment.) I finally had a plan for a site I wanted to build and a tool that could help me build it.
So... still no photos, huh?
Not quite yet. At this stage, I've built the foundation for the site and believe the key pieces are in place. However, I need to launch the site to finish testing and ensure everything works in a live environment. While testing in production is generally frowned upon, fully maintaining separate test and production systems for a personal project like this is a significant challenge.
So, I've decided to do a "soft launch" to iron everything out before adding the photo galleries. In the meantime, I've set up a few photo feeds where I'll occasionally post pictures as I edit them. You can check them out in the Photos section.
The good news is that adding the galleries is the next priority, and I've already done most of the hard work by creating the News section you're reading now. For a while, most site updates will be about the development of the site itself - I'm planning on doing some deeper technical dives on the setup for anyone who's interested.
How you can help
Building a site like this is a surprising amount of work, with countless small details to sort out, design, and test. I'm sure there are still issues and bugs I've missed, and my top priority is to identify and fix them.
The best way you can help right now is by providing feedback.
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How does the site look and feel to you?
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Do all of the pages load quickly?
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Is the navigation intuitive? Can you find everything easily?
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Did you encounter any errors or broken links?
Another way to help is to Sign Up for an account and complete your profile. And if you have ideas for what I can add to the site, I'd love to hear them. (You can check out the Roadmap to see some of the ideas I'm considering.)
Tuccy.net will continue to undergo a lot of changes for a while, but with your feedback and a bit more work, I hope to transform it into a site that's actually worth visiting.
