Skip to main content

Google App Engine to rescue my "Getting Things Done" project!

I was finally able to complete the project that I described in my previous blog :). Having been back from vacation for a couple of weeks now, I used up every single minute I had available to finish it up. It is hosted at http://chandan7.myhosting247.com/yagtd/ChandanGtd.html as usual.

Now you can see that as you add tasks for projects that has a specific tag and as you complete each task, you can observe the progress at both project level and tag level. All is well so far, but the only problem is that you cannot save what you enter into the application. As I previously mentioned, I had plans on running my own local server and being able to save all my tasks on my personal computer. But that did not make any sense to me. I wrote this neat application and am I the only one to be able to use it?

Google App Engine to the rescue
Just my luck, that Google App Engine was released while on my vacation. It is still in alpha stage, but it quite usable as it is. It has built-in data store where I can store all my data and the best thing is that there is a user api to allow users to log in to Google accounts and so I can maintain state from server side :). What a cool tool and that too just in time. However the unfortunate thing is that it was released while I was on vacation and I could not get in on the 10000 accounts that Google was giving away. I signed up and have to wait my turn. But I can still get to work by running the service locally.

My plan now is to save and load data from the server. Later I will clean up the code and open source it for every one to download and modify to their specific needs. Now to start learning Google App Engine.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Attesting General Power of Attorney in SF

Recently I had to go through the motions of getting a General Power of Attorney (GPA) document attested in San Francisco. I am an Indian by birth. My parents were trying to buy a house back in India for me. Since I did not want to travel to India they needed a GPA so that they can act on my behalf to sign all the documents required to buy the house. The problem however is that they needed it urgently because the seller lives in UK and wants to get all the things done quickly so he can go back. My parents send me a GPA document that they obtained from a lawyer. This is a document that will give the power to my parents to buy the said property in the document on my behalf. The lawyer said that I will have to get the document attested at an Indian Consulate in USA. The closest one for me is in SF and I can drive there in about an hour from where I live. So I though it will be like a day's work to get all the things done. I looked up at their  website  for the procedure t...

XBMC / Boxee remote control android app

I have been writing a few android apps over weekends at home and during 20% time at Google. However I never actually released any of them in the android market mainly because they were quick and dirty apps that fit my needs but perhaps would not be appealing to the general public. One such app that I quickly wrote over a couple of weekends is a XBMC remote. The media center that I use at home is XBMC and I have always wanted to have more control and faster access to my media. Using my remote to navigate through the menus is not as fast. Especially when I wanted to queue a lot of music it is very slow. So I wrote this nice little app called "XBMC remote" for my android phone to control XBMC from anywhere :). Give it a try. Search for "xbmc" in android market and install it if you use XBMC as your media center. When you first launch the app you will start with this screen. You will have to setup your web server address, username and password (if required) by ...

Power Off Delay Circuit

Recently I have been kicking myself for forgetting to turn off the motor that pumps water from a sump to an overhead tank at home. Every time I turn on the motor, I try to remember to turn it off in 30 minutes (about the time it takes to fill up the overhead tank from empty to full), but I keep forgetting to turn it off most of the time, wasting a lot of water before I realize it. Then I got an idea. Why not just make a simple, cost effective timer circuit that will turn off the motor after say 30 minutes? So I started thinking about it. All I need is a 555 timer and the correct resistors and capacitors that will delay the timer for the exact time I want the motor to stay on. Next I need a relay to control the motor. First the timer has to run in monostable mode. We just need a one-shot pulse. The pulse should be long enough to keep running the motor. Next we use t = 1.1RC to get the approximate time (in seconds) the output of 555 timer will be high based on the R (in ohms) and C ...