Idea Sticky

I have just finished creating my first application using Google Web Toolkit and Google App Engine. Like the rest of the world I chose to create a sticky application that syncs with a server. Therefore, people can access sticky notes easily where ever they are. I used eclipse for the development and have deployed the application for free on Google's App Engine.This application has not only been the first time I used GWT but in fact my first instance of using Java. It was a steep learning curve but now that I have a working application and I reflect on my learning I think it is far more maintainable that applications I have created in the past because of the use of packages. GWT also has a clear interface in implement AJAX which I preferred using compared to simply sending HTTP requests.

Another of the features that impressed me is GAE's ability to use Google's authentication services. This mean users can use their Gmail accounts with the application and that I didn't have to create my own authentication which would have taken far longer and certainly been less secure.

Some of the bigger challenges I faced throughout development where leaning how to use the Google data store which is different to traditional databases and allows objects to be stored directly to the store. After learning it I have decided this is more efficient in a lot of instances.

I am still ironing out some kinks and bugs and there are certainly ways I could make my application more efficient. For instance, currently I am sending far to much data over a network. It doesn't matter while not many people are using the application but could be expensive on the bandwidth with a more popular application. Through working through these kinks I want to further develop my GWT ability because in my opinion it is a ver valuable tool.

I would encourage people to use my application for notes but I wouldn't put privacy sensitive information on it because the content sent isn't encrypted. To use this application it needs to be referred to properly. This is done by creating a bookmark using the link below. Simply click and drag the link to your bookmark browser on most common browsers. You will need to log in the first time that may spoil your window size but after that it is a simple tool to store your notes in the cloud.

My Ideas Sticky

Update 16 July 2010

I have now changed the UI and my biggest concern is that it is now to cluttered. However, assuming users use the link above (or the bookmark they created with it) the sticky notes now records the page that instigated the sticky. This means that it is now able to generate a list of references for the sticky.

Update 19 July 2010

IdeasSticky now automatcially gathers the title and URL of a web page. The other fields can also be prefilled using values other users have used for the same web page. References for websites can be exported in Harvard and APA styles.