The merge sort is an under-appreciated algorithm - yet it is neat, clever and it still has its uses. With the rise of big data, parallel methods and online processing, you can even argue that it is growing in importance. Let's take a look at how it works and when you should use it. 

We are being offered ever more cores within a single processor as if this was as good as making the machine go faster. What exactly is the change from single to multi-core all about?

We take multitasking for granted now but it was a difficult technology to get right - and still is. We take a look at how it all developed and at the variations on the basic idea.

Neural networks are useful and might provide a route to an artificial brain.

What are the limits to computation? The computer science theory of computation can be intimidating because of its use of logic but taking a programmer's approach makes it seem much simpler. So if you want to know what a non-computable number is - read on.

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing is both a technology and a legal, if not moral, battle.

A quirky look at the power supply. Why do computers need power at all and how do power supplies work. The answers are surprising.

This article  is more or less everything that the working programmer should know about operators and their associated expressions and, of course, the use of parentheses.

Testing to see if a number is a prime or not is the basis of many encryption and security methods. It has long been assumed that there is no fast way, i.e no polynomial time method, to determine if a number is prime, but now we know different.

The real complexity of any computer system resides in the processor, but do you know how it works? I mean how it really works? How does the code that you write turn into something that does something? When you know how, it's not magic - just a matter of "fetch" and "execute".

MP3 is just a file format for audio files but judging by the revolution in the way music is listened to since it was introduced you might think it was much more and in a sense it is.

When it comes to processor architecture we still don’t  have a clear agreement on what sort of design philosophies should be followed. How do you make a faster general purpose processor? This is a question about architecture. 

Error correcting codes are essential to computing and all sorts of communications. At first they seem a bit like magic. How can you possibly not only detect an error but correct it as well? How do they work? In fact it turns out to be very easy to understand the deeper principles.

XML is a general purpose markup language that can be used to control the structure of data. Despite the fact that many prefer the simplicity of JSON, it still has many advantages. What makes it so good?

Public key encryption is vital to the working of the Internet and the commercial web in particular. We look at how it works and explain the RSA system in detail.

You have probably heard of Quicksort but what about Quick Median? This is another of the many partitioning algorithms that work in clever ways to do things faster. Quick Median is a useful and  instructive algorithm and it was invented by C.A.R. Hoare who also invented the Qucksort.

Recursion is often said to separate real programmers from the pack. What is it that makes it so powerful? What is it that makes it so difficult? What is the "shape" of recursion as a flow of control?

RPN or Reverse Polish Notation used to be a basic of the computer programmer's world, but today it is not as well known. Hence there may be some perfectly clued up programmers who are still left wondering what the sausage is doing outside of the bun.

The web would be virtually unusable without effective search engines that allow us to find the information we want.