Configuration flexibility and externalization

+ Made a number of changes to the application to externalize the configuration so that a build isn't required to adjust the app to each environment it is run on. 
+ Updated the documentation to describe how to run the pre-built application
+ Added the maven-assembly-plugin to the pom.xml to output a jar with all the libraries included in it. This will make it easier to run the app from the CLI after it's built.