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This page is where you can learn all about the various iterations of tophtucker.com that have existed over time. Note that all information earlier than 3.0 is extremely sketchy, seeing as how I began reporting major site upgrades on the now-defunct News page only then. This page was first introduced in version 3.1. It has now essentially replaced the new page.

Have any new ideas? Be sure to email me! Any way-out-there ideas on how to commemorate the big 5-(point)-0? Yup, email me. Any super-awesome way to celebrate double-digits for 10.0? Like virtual reality or something? Please email me. Any little-tiny improvements for version 4.1.2? Sure, why not email me.

Latest Updates

21 July 2005: Updated, nicer, more refined Flash home page, and other clean-up work.

19 April 2005: Brand-new Flash home page to commemorate one month until Star Wars: Episode III.

3 April 2005: Updates to home page & general spring cleaning around the site.

In Developmental/Conceptual Stages

• Bringing ALL the old site back online. That includes Lessons, Fun & Games, and miscellaneous little bits and pieces.
• Multiple themes for the home page. And not random like before, but rather leaving it open to you to choose.
• New TuckLyne Studios site, with short videos of past (& maybe current, too) works. After all, TLS has never really had a decent site, and it deserves one.
• New, improved color schemes that match better. :-)

Major Versions

Version 4.1.2 21 July 2005

You know, when I uploaded 4.1.1 I wasn't totally satisfied. The header was messy, the slideshow looked out of place, and... well... I don't know. But now created a new header -- well, sort of a 2.0 of the last header -- as well as cleaned up the slideshow a bit, although you probably won't notice. I also added the nice volcanoes at the bottom... aren't those nice? You better thing so -- I spent a while drawing that. :-)

I've also uploaded some past and new work -- more spring cleaning, really, although it's summer now. The look of the site varied wildly from section to section earlier, a result of me trying things out and trying new things out before finishing trying out the last things. That's a bit more uniform now. I also updated the Star Wars section with some new Episode III stuff. Wohoo!

Version 4.1.1 19 April 2005

The biggest redesign of the home page since the move from Version 1.0 to 2.0. It's no longer good old-fashioned HTML -- now it's done in Flash with a Star Wars theme, to commemorate one month until Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. More bits and pieces of the site overall are also coming together, with minor updates several pages, including the Star Wars and TuckLyne sections.

Version 4.1 April 2005

I generally finished what I started with 4.0. More pieces of the old site are coming back online in the new format. The new TuckLyne site is also online now. Note that pieces of this have been under construction for literally months -- 4.1 is largely just the next piece of 4.0, the parts that I didn't have time to finish before because I was running so far behind schedule.

Version 4.0 Winter 2004-5; Uploaded ~11:45, 2 January 2005

Wow. Talk about biggie. Certainly bigger than 3.0, and maybe even bigger than 2.0. That's saying something. Every single page on the site has been updated and given a great big facelift. Not a single page has escaped intact. Not even the old navigation structure -- two full versions old! -- survived. Not even the background color on my personal page -- which has been around since the very first page of this site was created! -- survived.

Okay, let's talk about navigation. The Photo Album has become engulfed in the full-blown Multimedia section, and that little annoying page previously called the Library has been blown up into the Writing section. The navigation now gets its own pane over on the left, and there's a new sectional navigation bar between the the title bar and content box.

Here are the biggest updates:

• New font: Arial and Arial Black instead of Times New Roman
• New logo, and new seasonal banners on home page
• Navigation bar on left
• Every page has a place; entire navigation re-done
• "Tucker" sub-section eliminated; Tucker family member pages now sit alongside the Lynes page.
• Weblog link added to navigation bar for easy access
• Sectional navigation up top
• Updated link bar at bottom
• All-new "Related Links" on navigation bar
• Each section features unique color scheme and background image
• "Table of Contents" boxes simplify intra-page navigation
• New "Multimedia" and "Writing" sections
• Complete Reviews & Editorials section
• Expanded Star Wars section
• Expanded Taconnet section
• Additional games and new icon system implemented over at Fun & Games
• New page for Rosie
• New "About the Site" page
• New Photo Albums added
• Every single page updated; every page now 100% up-to-date

Much more is coming in versions 4.1 (all new TuckLyne section - online now!) and 4.2 (new TuckLyne studios section!). It's an exciting time for Tophtucker.com!

Version 3.2 April-May 2004

As I predicted many months ago, the Lessons section has been resurrected, this time as a sub-section of the Library! Oddly enough, my main reason for bringing back the lessons was so that I could use it as a teaching supplement when I teach a computer class in school. Of course, the idea had been in my head for a while before that.

While creating the new Lessons section, I actually used some of the content from the original Lessons. However, most of it had to be done from scratch -- after all, the original Lessons section was canned pretty early in its life, and it was never that great to start with. Hopefully this incarnation is more useful. It's better-looking, too -- the original section was pretty ugly and clunky, though it was somewhat of a sign of things to come with its black border and extensive use of tables.

Other than that biggie, additions include editorials, new games and more. Check it out:

• Lessons 2.0
• Rosie updates
• Willy updates
• Minor Songs updates
• Games updates, including a new game: Snake
• School updates, with new School Trips and School Projects pages
• Library updates, including new editorials
• Minor home page updates

Version 3.1 December 2003-February 2004

This is also mega-big, and could almost be considered a full 1.0 upgrade. Either that, or it should have been the 3.0 upgrade and 3.0 should have been 2.9 or something. Never before have I worked so long and hard on a full update -- every page, including those curiously missing from the 3.0 update -- since the very early days, when I was creating new pages daily. Another important point when you look at this is that I did all the updating, and then uploaded all at once. Some highlights:

• A page for our new puppy Rosie! :-)
• A new page where you can download programs I've made
• This page :-)
• Slightly new look across all pages, now with a black border around every table frame (which makes it look much better, in my opinion) & a standard link bar at the bottom
• Minor home page updates
• The School section, complete with information on my past schools and downloadable examples of my work.
• Much-improved Library (now with program downloads, too!).
• Update to Songs page, which had been neglected for 1 1/2 years.
• New toolbar on the my Bio page.
• Updated Links page.
• Updated Download Recommendations page.

Well, now that I think of it, I think it's good that this is 3.1 and not 3.0 or 4.0. :-) Still, I've put a lot of work into this... of course, I put a whole lot of work into 3.0, too. I think that this still outdoes 3.0 by a little, though, just because of how comprehensive this update is -- every single page has been touched, and this time I don't think I've left any out. :-) Still, I don't think anything will compete with my original work, when I was learning new things every day. Oh well. Just wait until 4.0. :-)

Version 3.0.1 Fall 2003

When you visit the homepage, it now randomly selects from one of 5 different versions: the main style that's been around since v.2, a Red Sox edition, a Star Wars edition, a Microsoft edition and a Popcorn Guy edition. Some other stuff was probably updated... other stuff that I've forgotten by now! That's a nice reminder to remind all you readers of something: all the information for versions up to 3.1 was written as I was doing 3.1, so I might not remember everything. Not to mention I might mess up what I do remember.

Version 3.0 Later Summer 2003

This is the big one -- probably the biggest update since 2.0 came online! ;-) Some highlights from this revision:

• Virtually every page updated to include more accurate and current information.
• New home page, dramatically different from anything before it. It has a new links bar, a new Spotlight bar, and a new thingy at the bottom.
• A new logo, first seen in 2.5.
• A standardized heading, with the Tophtucker.com logo and a standard link bar at the top of every page.
• Inclusion of my recent Flash work in the Flash Gallery.
• New updates to old Games section, which had been rapidly deteriorating.
• Major updates to Photo Album, now with a new thumbnail/filmstrip-based design and more pictures.
• HUGE, much-needed updates to the Star Wars section, transforming it from a rogue terrorist state just clogging up the works to an established nation with a seat at the UN. ;-)
• An updated site map & news page
• Updates to little lonely pages like "Download Recommendations" and the Taconnet page.

Version 2.5 Summer 2003

This was basically just a stopgap measure until 3.0, and could just be called the beta version of 3.0. John (my older brother) and I have various online and phone conversations, with me updating and uploading in real-time and him offering suggestions. I would actually consider this one the my ugliest iterations ever.

Oddly enough, 2.5 was pretty much all for nothing. I abandoned the whole direction I was taking with it and v.3 was a whole bunch different -- and a whole lot better!

Version 2.0 circa early 2001

I finally got some sense knocked into me by John and realized that it wasn't all that great design to have a great big story of my life as the home page. Throughout the duration of 2.x, the basic format was: one table frame at the top with the title, a picture of me doing the disco dance below that, and then one table frame below it with links to all the sections.

That's a nice segway into the next big upgrade: sections. At this point I figured out the file tree some more, most importantly learning to link to the parent folder by preceding it with a "../". Those sections are still in use today, with one difference: there was a little something called "Lessons." Not a great name, but perhaps a worthy idea. It taught the basics of web design, and also served as a technological playground where I could experiment with tables, frames, background colors and intra-page linking. Eventually I decided I didn't have time to write all those lessons, and it was dead far before 3.0 came to be. However, I hear from very reliable sources it's back on the drawing board.

Finally, sometime during 2.x I made the switch to the tophtucker.com domain name. At first I had it registered but not hosted, so it just automatically forwarded to http://members.nbci.com/tophbtucker. Then NBCi stopped offering free web hosting and I signed up at http://www.1dollarhosting.com/ for $1 a month.

Version 1.0 circa Winter 1999/Spring 2000

Version 0.5 -- except online. Original address was http://members.xoom.com/tophbtucker. Then NBC picked up XOOM, and it became http://members.nbci.com/tophbtucker. Still used the CBT Bio page as the home page, with everything else linked to that.

Version 0.5 circa Summer/Fall 1999

This existed only on the hard drive of our old Windows 95 and then Windows 98 computer. It was essentially one site. The first two pages were just a couple black words with a simple hyperlink to the other page.

Eventually, I experimented with color and came up with a very early version of the Toph Tucker - Bio page, without tables or many of the images. When I first found out how to place images, I had nothing on the hard drive to work with. That is how the current corporate logo pollution on that site came to be.

After a while, I had created sites for each member of the family, all linked together. By that time I was ready to put it all online...