Analytics Problems....

So the past week according to Google Analytics my visits have dropped from almost 200 a day to ZERO.
I know that one day people did not just stop searching the web for laser tutorials and stop visiting my blog. What I don't know is what happened.

If any bloggers out there have run in to similar issues real recently let me know in a comment below. Also, if you managed to fix it let me know what you did.

More than likely the problem is because of my own error. I just don't know if blogger or google changed anything.

Analytics says that it is receiving data from my blog and everything is okay so I really have no clue on this one. I never really dug to deep into Analytics to know how it all works. It told me what I needed to know at the time and that was how many hits a day my blog was getting.  Now I wish I took the time to read and learn more. Reading is very important when it comes to just about anything you want to learn.

Laser Ball!!

This is not my project but it is very very cool and I wanted to share it on here.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-Ball/

eBay Blu Ray Modification

You can see where I cut the end on the laser off and was able to screw in the lens of an Aixiz housing allowing me to focus this laser to a pin point beam. It will burn dark material and cut black trash bags as well as pop balloons. It isn't near as impressive as the DIY Red I built but this laser also only costs around $10.

I'm sure they are still being sold. The guy I ordered from had reds, greens and bluray. Some even came with assorted patterned lense caps.

Have you seen this laser diode?

Has anyone else run into a laser diode that looks like this? I'm sure it could be used in a burning laser but it certainly won't fit into the aixiz housing used in my tutorial.

Modified eBay Blu Ray laser. Will Burn.

DIY Burning Laser

I am not sure why I did not add this video a long time ago seeing as it was made using the exact laser I built in my tutorial. It is the one pictured at the beginning of the post.

iOS 5 Panorama mode picture.

Results may very from user to user based on their ability to hold their device steady and move smoothly but this is what I managed to take for my first try.

iOS 5 Hidden Panorama Camera Mode

Enable Panorama capture in ios 5 with firebreak from cydia.

Panoramic capture is not yet ready for public release but is included in ios 5 however it is not enabled. You can enable it by searching for firebreak in cydia. Keep in mind that because it is not ready for public release that it may not work as well as you would like it to.

Laser Tutorial Views

My laser tutorial has had 70,843 views since it was posted!

Favicon Design

Who would like to design the Favicon for this blog? I would love to make it a contest but im afraid that I have nothing to give away as a prize. I will be designing a temporary Favicon for the blog but I figured that I could leave it up to my viewers to design and decide which favicon wins and will be the official Random How To favicon. Once your image is made, it needs to be sized to 57px x 57px and saved as a .PNG file at 72dpi. Name the file apple-touch-icon.png and email it to me. Once the favicon is finished and applied to my blog it will have a home screen icon for Iphone users when they add my site as a bookmark to their home screen. If you like the idea of this please let me know in the comments and if you have anything to submit please send it to me via email at jpjelmore@gmail.com Subject: Favicon Random How To so that I can easily spot the submission in all of my other emails. I hope to get some submissions coming up int he next few days or weeks. I cant wait to see what you all send me. Thanks and Good Luck!

Mobile Browser Compatible

Random How To is now mobile web browser compatible.

Ive been going through the settings and seeing what is new with blogger and I noticed the option to set up mobile view. With the increase of smartphones and tablets on the market as well as seeing that there have been viewers from mobile devices I decided to enable mobile view. Now you can easily view my blog from your phone.

I also set up the ability to snap photos with my iPhone and send them directly to my blog as a new post. I think that is a pretty cool feature. Ive already been messing around with the blogger app for ios.

I hope to have some new content to post but most times when I am working on a project I never think to grab my camera and take some pictures along the way. There have been countless projects I have worked on since the creation of this blog but most of the time I forget that it is even here until I receive an email when I have new comments.

My Arduino Clone

Looking for suggestions!

Anyone who has an idea for a "how to" please share it in the comments. If there is something you need help with let me know and I will try my best to assist you.

I will be going over the comments on the laser tutorial and trying to answer any unanswered questions there are.

I could really use some ideas though to get this blog rolling again.

Donations for parts to continue tutorial?

If anyone wishes to donate some money so that I can order the parts needed to build the circuit for the DIY laser tutorial then I will gladly do a step by step HD video of soldering it all together. I know that I said I would add on to or finish the tutorial. For the most part it is finished. Everything you need to know is already in the tutorial. I had just planned on making an assembly video to further simplify is for people who have little to or no experience soldering circuits.

If donating a few bucks is something you are interested in doing let me know. The money will go to my PayPal account and pretty much be stuck there so I would need to find a source online to order the parts that accepts PayPal. If you know of a place let me know.