http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tutorials&d2=alg_index
Topcoder has many excellent tuorials for algorithms that we meet everyday, for example, dijkstra and maxflow, which all were written by topcoder members. Usually, at the end of each tutorial, the author would often explain some applications for this specific kind of algorithm, and most of the applications are from the topcoder’s competition problems. It’s a nice place to start with if you want to improve your programming skills.