Please review and consider merging

Hi @kiall

Although I've removed the netbeans project files as well as the build files (I consider these to be outside module and related more to the system/developer using the project).

I've imported the branches from @shadowhand & @xibao and implemented a few things and defined a small roadmap that others might also consider interesting (Please review the TODO section on the README.md file)

Feedback is appreciated :)

Cheers,
Daniel Macedo