How do dogs drink water?  

Posted by Fast Fire Fish in

Ever watched a dog drink water from a bowl and was thinking man it must be tiring to drink water with just that little tongue. Apparently, dog's tongue construct is quite different from us as human beings in the sense that they can exercise more flexibility. Lets see what I meant....



This is one of the little things that we might see frequently but never bothered to find out about the actual in depth happenings of how that is possible. Hope you've learnt something new today. Cheers!

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George Dawson the Inspirational Learning Example  

Posted by Fast Fire Fish in

I'M SO SORRY!!! I was terribly busy engaging with stuff like attending courses and work that I was unable to update my site for quite a while. Once again I apologize to my sincere readers. TODAY, I would like to share an inspirational legendary man that was little known to the general public, George Dawson.

This man, George Dawson was illiterate for almost his entire life until this man, Carl Henry chanced upon his life. Did you or hear anyone said they are too old to be learning anything? Well....think again. Not with this man definitely. He was 98 years old when he just started to learn how to read. Try to beat that. I had the privilege of being shown the video on the part where George Dawson appeared on the Oprah show during my course. It was totally amazing if you asked me. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a source for the video to share with you guys.

Nevertheless, the spirit of learning is the message that I want to convey through this life example. My sincere respects for this man, George Dawson.


Wikipedia Link: George Dawson

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Blink your image in Java  

Posted by Fast Fire Fish in ,

Ever need to make an image blink continuously to signal for some kind of incoming activity? Well....I'm going to share a simple sample on how to do that.



import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.GraphicsConfiguration;
import java.awt.GraphicsDevice;
import java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment;
import java.awt.Image;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;

import javax.swing.Icon;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JLayeredPane;


public class BlinkingLabel extends JLabel implements Runnable{

private boolean show=false,blink=true;
private Icon iconImg;
private JLayeredPane parent;

public BlinkingLabel(Icon icon, JLayeredPane pane)
{
super(icon);
this.iconImg = icon;
this.parent = pane;

this.setVisible(true);
new Thread(this).start();

}

public void run() {
while (blink) {
show=!show;

if(show)
parent.moveToFront(this);
else
parent.moveToBack(this);

repaint();
try { Thread.sleep(400); } catch (Exception e) { }
}
}

public boolean isBlink() {
return blink;
}

public void setBlink(boolean blink) {
this.blink = blink;
}

}

The concept of this BlinkingLabel class is to pass in a secondary image along with another JLayeredPane object which is the main container for the original image. That is to say we are actually making use of the 2 images one of which shows the original state and the other is actually the lighted up state. Upon instantiating an object with this class, the secondary image will be toggled on and off with a variable of 400 milliseconds. You can tweak this setting if you wish it to be faster or slower.


Of course this is just one of the ways to make an image blink repeatedly. I'm sure there are other methods like overriding the paintComponent method or something.

If you've enjoyed this article, drop me a comment!

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How to insert a Custom RSS Icon  

Posted by Fast Fire Fish in

I was meddling with some of the blog sites and I saw they have this customized RSS icon at some corner of the site. I thought to myself ...why not? If you are close follower of my blog, you would have noticed the addition of the black cowboy hat that lingers at the top right corner of my blog site. On it is a signature RSS logo which was tied to this white ribbon around the hat. So.... for those of you who shares the same thought for the moment, I'm going to provide a guide on how to add that personal touch to that site of yours.


GUIDE

Step 1
Firstly you got to get a custom RSS icon which at least you fancy. If you got no idea where to get it, you could try here.


Step 2 
 Look around your site's template design to source for a suitable location for the placement of the custom rss logo.


Step 3

Upload the picture to some online photo hosting sites like photobucket. Create an account if you do not have one, upload the picture and get the URL which points directly to the image. (Eg. http://myrsslogo.jpg)


Step 4

Use the following code block to insert the image link in your desired location. Insert the URL of the picture where you uploaded in Step 3, and replace the code at "YOUR IMAGE URL" with the URL you've got.



<a href="YOUR FEED ADDRESS URL" target="_blank">
<img src="YOUR IMAGE URL" border="0" />
</a>

Also remember to link your rss logo image to your feed address URL which should be replace at "YOUR FEED ADDRESS URL".

You should see your custom logo up and running. Congrats!! IF your logo is in a odd shape like mine, you might want to customized the hyperlink to the shape of your image. That way, your hyperlink only works within the shape of the image. I used Microsoft Frontpage to generate the what you call the "Image Map" that bounds the region of the hyperlink.


Step 5(Optional)
Open the image with Microsoft Frontpage. Insert-> Picture -> From File

Step 6
Select an image map tool which is either rectangle, circle or polygon. The best tool which suits your needs of course to draw the outline of the image. Finish the outline and choose a destination for the hyperlink.


Step 7
The code generated will be something like this:


<map name='Map0'>
<area coords='24, 61, 28, 40, 35, 30, 43, 26, 54, 24, 64, 24, 73, 26, 83, 24, 96, 28, 100, 41, 104, 49, 102, 55, 119, 53, 125, 35, 127, 60, 127, 69, 126, 76, 119, 82, 107, 87, 96, 91, 31, 96, 20, 99, 54, 104, 45, 107, 35, 108, 25, 108, 15, 104, 9, 104, 1, 100, 0, 86, 1, 78, 54, 71, 13, 63' href='YOUR FEED ADDRESS URL' shape='polygon' target='_blank'/>
</map>
<img alt='RSS Black Hat' border='0' src='YOUR IMAGE URL' usemap='#Map0'/>


Copy the code and paste it in your site. Save and now your hyperlink is customized!
That's all for today's quickie.

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