10 Fabulous Apps of Rails Rumble 2010

Justin Stravarius on November 3rd 2010

The Rails Rumble is an annual 48 hour web application development competition in which teams of skilled web application developers get one weekend to design, develop, and deploy the best web property that they can, using the power of Ruby and the Rails framework.

Now that Ruby on Rails is one of the most sought after domain of Web 2.0, hundreds of cool apps take part in the competition year after year. Read on to check out the list of web apps that made into the top of the list.

BeerCheck.in

BeerCheck.in took the top prize in this year’s Rails Rumble. The web app is a virtual beer shelf for you to let the world know of the various brewskies you’ve tasted. You can sign in with your Twitter account and start adding the brands of beer by searching for them. The virtual beer shelves of other members can also be viewed to see what you might’ve been missing.

Owe Me Cash

Owe Me Cash came second in the race. They basically run an online collection agency. Does somebody owe you money? Contact these guys and they will shake down the debtor for you (just kidding!). Enter the contact details of the person and the amount they owe you and the web app sends automatic reminders to those that owe you money by phone, text and email. You can sign in using your Facebook, Twitter or OpenID accounts.

Choons.fm

Choons.fm won the third place in the competition. Choons is a web app that allows people to organize their album collection from an easy to use and gorgeous interface. The web app looks like Apple iBooks and you can add music albums you like and the ones you are planning to hear. Selecting an album lists the tracks in it and shows people who have the album in their lists and their comments.

Commendable Kids

Now that the entire internet universe is going crazy with badges, Commendable Kids uses it for the best intended cause in the planet: encouraging kids. As soon as they accomplish something, say, read their first book or got a prize, you or a family member can award them with a unique badge. The web app allows you to invite friends, family members and teachers to become fans and interact with your child. Badges are not limited to one child per account and hence you can add multiple children. A great way to promote teamwork among siblings, classmates and more!

Let your kids see their accomplishments and rewards grow! You can also order a hard copy of the badges as buttons, post-cards or certificates to hang it on your wall. Commendable Kids won the best looking web app award of the current edition of Rails Rumble.

Wrappp.it

Wrappp.it tries to solve one of the top social problems – finding the right gift for your loved ones. Use Wrappp.it to collaborate about gift ideas with friends, family and colleagues. Chip in with others and find the perfect gift that your friend, family member or co-worker deserves.

Selection of the perfect gift involves three steps. In the first step, you add the name of the person to create a dedicated discussion page. You can share it with your relatives and friends to brainstorm about the likes & dislikes of the person in question. Now you can comment on the flood of gift ideas that come in, select them, chip in and split the cost with others. All you have to do is to show up to the party bearing the coolest gift!

Desks Near Me

A freelancer’s life is as awesome it gets. Being your own boss, flexible work hours, working in cool pajamas and bunny slippers, the ability to pick and choose projects you like are some of the very few perks of being a freelancer. There are a couple of downsides too and the top among them being the lack of social interactions. Since most of us work from home, interactions with fellow human beings come down drastically. No more water cooler chats or those cool grapevine gossips for us.

Desks Near Me is a simple and beautiful way for freelancers, contractors, and other nomadic workers to see great places where they can work together yet independently. After signing up using your Twitter or Open ID account, you can post a free listing or browse for workplaces in your neighborhood. Each featured workspace is accompanied by a photograph and a calender. Hovering over the dates on the calender will show how many desks are free and you can fix an appointment on that day for the next round of negotiations.

Stud Guru

The developers behind Stud Guru, try to solve the most elusive secrets of all time – finding out what women want. Their idea is making men happy by making their women happy, one thoughtful gesture after another. StudGuru keeps track of the special dates in your girl’s life, her likes and dislikes and you can even jot down quick notes to remember that precious nugget of information. Email alerts can be set for important dates like anniversaries, birthdays etc. On top of this, the web app also sends you a weekly email with helpful tips.

Awesome Fontstacks

Web designers are very excited about the new possibilities in web typography coming with CSS 3 and web fonts. But the tedious work required to match and adjust web fonts alone can be very annoying. Awesome Fontstacks lets you easily create bundles of beautifully matching, free web fonts, with failsafe font stacks to back them up. The web app also provides ready-to-go CSS code for your webpage.

GitWrite

As the homepage says, GitWrite is blogging for nerds set on top Git, the fast version control system. GitWrite is designed to build a WordPress-like experience on top of a Git-based blog. When you sign up for GitWrite, a new blog is created (at yourname.gitwrite.com) and stored in a private repository. You make the updates, push them back, and they’ll be published automatically from a web interface that seemlessly integrates with your repo.

Leatherbound

Leatherbound helps you find the ebook you are looking for with a single search. You don’t have to perform multiple searches in the iBooks, Nook, and Kindle stores just to find the book at the price you want. The web app is elegantly designed and is a must have for bookworms.

Tuesday 7 February 2012