I'm starting an approximately weekly linklog of interesting reading I come across. The content will be mostly technical, with a liberal dollop of eclectic bric-a-brac. Enjoy!

Algorithms

• Damn Cool Algorithms: Log structured storage

  Good, quick overview of this common storage strategy.

• Flow Analysis & Time-based Bloom Filters

  An interesting idea - Bloom filters with progressive expiry. Example implementation on top of Redis.

Software

• netsniff-ng: a new zero-copy packet sniffer

  Linux only, and probably likely to stay that way. There are papers concluding that sniffing 10 gigabit connections losslessly from a single system isn't feasible, but a zero-copy sniffer is a step in the right direction.

• bup: a backup system that uses the git packfile format

  Another project that uses git as infrastructure. I expect to see more and more of these.

• synergy+

  Someone has finally picked up the venerable but dying Synergy keyboard and mouse sharing project and started maintaining it.

• jsCrypto - Fast symmetric cryptography in Javascript

  I have to come up with a project to use this in. Took it for a test run, and the code seems good, speed seems great. Along with browser-side Javascript speed improvements, this type of library is going to make a whole new generation of zero-knowledge applications possible.

Visualisation

• Victorian Infographics

  Gorgeous 19th century data visualisations. Well worth looking at for inspiration.

UX

• Web form design guidelines: an eyetracking study

Security

• Gravatars: why publishing your email's hash is not a good idea

  Security is like rock-climbing - all you need is that first toe-hold...