Hey there! Happy new year! I wish you and your family nothing but the best for 2021!

There’s been an insane amount of rainfall since… Last year (hehe). Didn’t celebrate much; not a party person and the covid situation kind of encourages me to even further isolate myself, if that’s even possible. I’m happy 2020 is finally over though. While I’ve no idea what 2021 will bring, it’s nice to feel as though we are starting anew with a new year.

A quick recap. There’s no deny how horrible 2020 was to everybody; the worst are the irreversible changes forced upon people’s lives. Staying positive and counting my blessings, I’m thankful I wasn’t affected to till that extend.

The virus stopped everything dead in their tracks. Suddenly, I was given so much free time away from my work and I took advantage of it. I picked up a couple of new skills; engraving (built myself a homemade pneumatic-assisted engraving machine) and basic coding (python and web development). As I pretty much jumped straight into learning basic coding after making my machine, I’ve nothing much to show for engraving. However, in terms of web development, I’m extremely proud to share a little website, which I’ve spent a good 2 months working on, with you, my kind reader.

WWW.RDGSG.COM (best experienced on a mobile device)

I remember reading somewhere that the best way to learn/ practice coding is to use what you’ve learnt and apply it in real life to solve a problem. With that mindset, I tapped into my years of professional experience in Singapore’s fine jewellery industry and created a website which sole purpose is to guide the first time and confused diamond buyer on his/her diamond buying journey, by providing neutral, insider information and online tools.

I’m especially proud with what I’ve done with the tools part; it took up the bulk of my time. After identifying the problem I want to solve or a way to facilitate the diamond buying process, I designed the tool and coded it to life. First I made its visuals with HTML and CSS, then I added its functionality via Javascript. In that manner, I’ve produced 5 tools available online free for people to use.

Now I know that my tools aren’t life-saving useful, but I feel a sense of pride knowing that I’ve created something that may be of some use to someone who needs it.

The website might not look right on your laptop/ desktop screen; I can only manage to make it look right on one of the two different laptops I’ve used to create the website, never both. I’ve learned so much from this project, it also reminds me that I’ve got so much more to learn. However, this website is actually meant to be a mobile device experience; I built the website with that in mind from the start. In fact, some of the tools will not work on the screen of your laptop/ desktop. While I’ve a rough idea what I should do to optimise RDGSG.com for the larger screens, I’ll leave that to be worked on in the future because I’m not willing to put in that time and effort, at the moment, to fix this issue which I deemed is non-vital. For now, as long as the website is performing its best from the mobile, I’m satisfied enough.

Besides, I’ve already begun my next project; time is a precious commodity. As I work on my latest project, I shall continue my coding lessons and keep you updated. Hopefully, we can all start traveling too, so I can go back to writing about my travels with Constant Companion RR.

Thank you for reading! I’ll speak to you soon.