Project Delta: web-based but standalone app

The vision for Project Delta (mentioned in this previous blog entry) is that it will be used by physicians who are also digital nomads (ie, sometimes they're working online, sometimes they're not). This means:

• Delta needs to act as a standalone app when the doctor is disconnected from the network.
• When there is a network connection, Delta acts as a web application that syncs its data over the network.

It's also important to state here that we decided this app would be built on RoR (Ruby on Rails). We want to benefit from the RoR's strength for supporting rapid and flexible development. But RoR brings one disadvantage -- it's still a pain to install on Windows (and some of our intended users may be Windows users).

Mulling these over, I formed early ideas about the technical solution. But I am aware that others are much better and more experienced than me on this one, so I asked my panel of technical advisors about this.

Here's the summary, which is good enough to go on:

• For a quick installer for Windows, try RailsFTW by Brian Bibat. 
• Stack Overflow discussion thread about distributing RoR apps as standalone apps.
• Essential tools for Mac Ruby developers is self-explanatory. Some of the tools are not that important in my opinion, but it's a good list to start.

If you know a good solution for our technical issues and requirements, do send me a comment. Will highly appreciate it.