Samizdata

The press plagarist of the year competition is in its final round. Go and vote for the worst blog content pirate…

Here is another in my intermittent series pointing out unusual blogs.

Hard Diamond is the blog of a British master jeweller by the name of Paul Hatton (and as any Londoner knows, Hatton Gardens is the centre of the UK jewellery trade). He takes commissions and explains here the reasons for bespoke jewellery. These are uniqueness, range and price & access to maker.

Jewellery is very personal: it is often used as a very unique way of showing love and affection, or human bonds. It often remains in families as heirlooms passed from generation to generation. It is only natural that when expressing a bond of love for another, people wish to seek something wholly unique to express the uniqueness of their feelings. Rather than something bought from even a high-end chain store, a design from a designer/maker, or a piece of bespoke jewellery, commissioned with an input in design, perhaps personalized with a birthstone or other symbolic stone or precious metal, speaks volumes about our feelings in a solid, eloquent and lasting way. I enjoy and am uplifted by working with people to make in fine jewellery or tableware an expression of their love or affection for another. Similarly, with symbols of status such as watches. A Cartier watch is a beautiful thing; but you will also see the same watch worn by other people. If I make a watch for you, often for the same price or less, you will have a unique and lasting timepiece no-one else can own.

What makes his blog fascinating is that it does not just display his rather groovy artefacts that he has created so far…

…but it also tells a story of his trade, such as this description of setting a gem in an emerald ring:

Emeralds are very fragile stones, as you may have seen from my first blog entry on the Moh’s hardness scale. It’s not recommended that this method of setting an emerald be used, as you have a 50% chance or more of damaging the stone. It takes extreme skill and experience to accomplish successfully this type of setting. When one has successfully achieved such a setting, great relief is felt, as emeralds of this quality don’t come cheaply, as I wipe the sweat from my brow…

Blogs like this make his profession come alive and he turns it into his own medium as well as a ‘inside’ story-telling space. Take a peek for yourself.

Barter economics at its purest.

Start with one (1) paper clip, and see where it takes you.

Heather “Momma Bear”, who has been an important figure in the early stages of the blog world, has died after a long battle against cancer. She has been a friend to a number of bloggers I know well, including fellow Pimlicoan Andrew Ian Dodge. She was quite a character. RIP.

I realise that Samizdata is not really for this, but what follows is what is on my mind. The woes of politics, economics, life (i.e. other people’s lives), etc., can wait. My question is: does anyone know of an online source – preferably a blog – of advice about how to make a blog running on/under/with “Expression Engine” work better than it does now?

I offer no links in this posting, other than to the ailing blog in question, because links is what I want, rather than what I have.

My personal blog is now facing serious problems. First, I do not know how to make my monthly archives contain everything written during that month. You merely get the top few postings. And second, the process of uploading pictures has stopped working, without anything resembling an explanation:

A problem was encountered while attempting to upload your file.

Not helpful.

Third, in general, first really, the list of things you can tweak and twiddle when you look in the “Admin” section of the control/input system, or anywhere else in among all that stuff for that matter, consists entirely of things that could mean absolutely anything, and consequently, to me, mean absolutely nothing. Where do I find how to increase the number of postings shown in each monthly archive? It is impossible even to guess, and so far I have found nothing on the subject, despite several hours of looking.

Because the blog still is not working properly, I have not been able to get out of the “here is something silly just so as there is something up today” mode, and to start doing serious thinking and serious posting. I like trivia, from time to time. But not all the time.

My problems are caused by my opinions about how my blog should look. I think my blog should look good. I often write about the look of things, which is why I often want to put up photos, right next to what I have written. A blog that is one of those blog standard template thingies would not suffice for these purposes. I want something that looks a bit special, like the things I often like to write about.

What I really need to learn of is a blog where Expression Engine users ask each other questions and where clever Expression Engine show-offs or would-be Expression Engine paid consultants provide show-off and expert answers. Any Expression Engine experts in the London area would be especially useful to learn about. I do have someone helping me quite a lot, but that someone works funny and numerous hours at something else, and is not omniscient. A group blog just might be omniscient round the clock, as near as makes no difference. But is there one?

By the way, please (I cannot compel this but I can beg) do not turn any comments on this into an argument/celebration about how to upload photos to something else, like Flickr. My picture problem is uploading pictures into an Expression Engine blog posting. I want pictures on my blog. Pictures somewhere else as well is not now my problem.

If I cannot solve my problems with Expression Engine, which basically means finding a person or people who can help me solve my problems with Expression Engine, then I will stop using it. I only used Expression Engine in the first place because I was told that Samizdata was going to switch to it, which it has yet to do.

Bloggingwise, it has not been my year.

UPDATE Wednesday October 5th: Expression Engine is not to blame! Repeat: Expression Engine is not to blame! I am still confused by it, but I am confused by everything computational. I am now busy concocting a slightly longer version of this to put up at Samizdata, but meanwhile I attach this to the original posting. If you publicly denounce a product, and it turns out to be blameless, you must say so, and in a blog it is possible to say it right next to where you did the original trashing. So: sorry Expression Engine! Hope you are still in business. When I have done the longer posting, I will add the link forward to it from here.