Merge pull request #1 from gschueler/master

Improve initialize and cookie based auth
fix needsRefresh method.
add needsRefresh and setRefreshInterval to interface.
add utility script to make api get requests
add codahale metrics lib dependency.
added input config parameter to filter inputs by regex.
added trial uses of codahale metrics for counting and timing
requests.
added more tests for basic cache.
ensure .xml is appended to hrefs in HTTP requests.
restored use of GPars parallel requests (was removed for problem
isolation).
Remove String.asType metaprogramming from Rest code