Lessons Learned

1. Mongoid: http://railscasts.com/episodes/238-mongoid-revised
2. Google Contacts API: https://developers.google.com/google-apps/contacts/v3/ Bonus: import Outlook contacts and iPhone contacts
3. Sorcery External Authentication: https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery/wiki/External
4. Don't call a field :class in MongoDB or application will crash

Roadblocks:

1. Handling duplicate contacts
2. Offline contacts vs. Online synced contacts

For later: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7996342/mongomapper-run-simple-mongodb-queries

Gmaps4Rails

You don't need Google API key when using gmaps4rails because it uses Google Maps Javascript API V3

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5042829/google-maps-api-key-in-gmaps4rails

Mongoid

Updating instance variable in controller updates Mongodb database

Example - Search function for contacts - code below will modify user -> contacts

def show
  @user = User.find(params[:id])
  
  @user.contacts = if params[:search] && params[:search] != ""
    @user.contacts.where(first_name: params[:search])
  else
    @user.contacts
  end  
end