Throw away the keys: Easy, Minimal Perfect Hashing

Perfect hashing is a technique for building a hash table with no collisions in the minimum possible space. They are a easy to build with this simple python function.

Simulating freehand drawing with Cairo

Using the Acer Aspire One as a web server

A netbook can be ideal for a home web server. They are cheap, and use less power than a CFL light bulb.

How wide should you make your web page?

Based on 22500 unique IP addresses over the past week.

A simple command line calculator

A textbook example of recursive descent parsing.

It's a dirty job... (comic)

The Curious Complexity of Being Turned On

In software, the simplest things can turn into a nightmare, especially at a large company.

Zwibbler: A simple drawing program using Javascript and Canvas

Now it's a commercial product, but Zwibbler was once a fun side-project, and here's some details on its implementation.

Finding Bieber: On removing duplicates from a set of documents

Using a locality sensitive hash, you can mark duplicates in millions of items in no time.

C++: A language for next generation web apps

On Monday, I was pleased to be an uninvited speaker at Waterloo Devhouse, hosted in Postrank's magnificent office. After making some surreptitious alterations to their agile development wall, I gave a tongue-in-cheek talk on how C++ can fit in to a web application.