An Evening at the Google HQ

As I have specified in my previous post, I was invited for the Google Campfire One event that took place on 7th April 2009 from 7 to 9 pm. Below is my account of the evening at Google HQ and the outcome of it.

I went in at around 7 pm and after parking the car I found directions to the event hall. At the registration desk, I was asked for my first name and then issues a name tag. There were few snacks and drinks available along with a cake in celebration of 1st birthday of App Engine. Event presentation started exactly at 7:30 pm as specified and I’m not going to write here all the announcements that were made. You can check their blog post to see what was announced.

Out of all the announcements, those that interest me are the ability to run Java apps on App Engine and the cron support. I have been working in Java space for the past 4 years and had to learn Python to create the dollar to rupee and "cricket links" apps on App Engine. With this new Java support, I don’t have to work with Python and it makes creating apps a lot easier for me.

I have few ideas for the new apps that I’m going to create on App Engine using Java and as always, you are welcome to give me suggestions on anything you would like me to work on. If I like the idea and think that it can be implemented on App Engine, I will work on it.

With cron support, I don’t have to work-around to use scheduled tasks. And it provides a way to add few features to the Dollar to Rupee application. I was thinking on implementing email alerts. How useful it will be if you can receive an email alert when the exchange rate crosses a certain value like 50 ? Write in comments about what you think and I will try to work on something that is useful for a large user base.