diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 45cc834c..9c529b8e 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,5 +1,25 @@
 # qbt - Quantopian Backtesting Services
 
+##Development Quickstart
+Navigate to your mongodb installation and start your db server:
+	./bin/mongodb 
+
+Install the necessary python libraries:
+	easy_install tornado pymongo
+
+Create a development database with sample data, will create one qbt user:
+	python qbt_data_bootstrap.py --user_email=... --password=...
+
+To run the qbt against a local mongodb instance, navigate to the source dir and run
+	python qbt_server.py --mongodb_dbname=qbt 
+
+To see all the available options:
+	python qbt_server.py --help
+or
+	python qbt_data_bootstrap.py --help
+
+	
+
 qbt uses tornado to accept synchronous requests for backtesting sessions. 
 The client of a backtesting session first invokes the _backtest_ endpoint:
 http://serverip/backtest?startdate=<>&enddate=<>...
@@ -13,17 +33,22 @@ A backtesting session is comprised of:
 - an event stream delivered via zeromq
 
 ## Pre-requisites
+You need to have the tornado and pymongo eggs installed:
+	easy_install tornado pymongo
 
-### MongoDB Server ###
+You need to have mongodb installed and running. Find your system at http://www.mongodb.org/downloads and set it up.
+
+### Database and Collections expected in MongoDB ###
 QBT requires a running mongodb instance with a few collections:
 
-- user collection. See handlers.BaseHandler for code using this collection. Documents must have:
+- user collection. See handlers.BaseHandler and handlers.LoginHandler for code using this collection. Documents must have:
 	- email - standard email address
-	- encrypted_password - an sha2 hex digest of the password
-	- salt - a secret other than the password, which can be set in a secure cookie to maintain a session. if unset, will be set to sha2 hex of datetime.utcnow()--password 
+	- salt - sha256 hex of: datetime.utcnow()--password 
+	- encrypted_password - an sha256 hex digest of: salt--password
 	- _id - standard issue mongodb primary key
 	
 
 
+## Authenticating
 
 ## Requesting a Backtest
diff --git a/qbt_data_bootstrap.py b/qbt_data_bootstrap.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..de4dd2d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/qbt_data_bootstrap.py
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+import tornado.auth
+import tornado.httpserver
+import tornado.ioloop
+from tornado.options import define, options
+import tornado.web
+import pymongo
+import bson
+import hashlib
+import base64
+import uuid
+import os
+import logging
+
+import qbt_server
+
+define("user_email", default="qbt@quantopian.com", help="email address for qbt user")
+define("password", default="foobar", help="password for qbt user")
+
+def db_main():
+    tornado.options.parse_command_line()
+    connection, db = qbt_server.connect_db()
+    
+    #create a user for testing
+    salt, encrypted_password = qbt_server.encrypt_password(None, options.password)
+    
+    db.users.insert({'email':options.user_email, 'encrypted_password':encrypted_password, 'salt':salt})
+    
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    db_main()
diff --git a/qbt_server.py b/qbt_server.py
index ed8e39a9..cfd7f837 100644
--- a/qbt_server.py
+++ b/qbt_server.py
@@ -10,19 +10,38 @@ import base64
 import uuid
 import os
 import logging
+import datetime
 
-logging.getLogger('qbt').setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
-logger = logging.getLogger('qbt')
+logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
+logger = logging.getLogger()
 
 define("port", default=8888, help="run the qbt on the given port", type=int)
 define("mongodb_host", default="127.0.0.1", help="mongodb host address")
 define("mongodb_port", default=27017, help="connect to the mongodb on the given port", type=int)
-define("mongodb_dbname", default="blog", help="database name")
-define("mongodb_user", default="blog", help="database user")
-define("mongodb_password", default="blog", help="database password")
+define("mongodb_dbname", default="qbt", help="database name")
+define("mongodb_user", default="qbt", help="database user")
+define("mongodb_password", default="qbt", help="database password")
 
 HASH_ALGO = 'sha256'
 
+def connect_db():
+    connection = pymongo.Connection(options.mongodb_host, options.mongodb_port)
+    db = connection[options.mongodb_dbname]
+    db.authenticate(options.mongodb_user, options.mongodb_password)
+    return connection, db
+    
+def encrypt_password(salt, password):
+    if(salt == None):
+        h1 = hashlib.new(HASH_ALGO)
+        h1.update(str(datetime.datetime.utcnow())+"--"+password)
+        salt = h1.hexdigest()
+        
+    h2 = hashlib.new(HASH_ALGO)
+    h2.update(salt+"--"+password)
+    encrypted_password = h2.hexdigest()
+    
+    return salt, encrypted_password
+
 class Application(tornado.web.Application):
     def __init__(self):
         handlers = [
@@ -41,9 +60,7 @@ class Application(tornado.web.Application):
         tornado.web.Application.__init__(self, handlers, **settings)
 
         # Have one global connection to the blog DB across all handlers
-        self.connection = pymongo.Connection(options.mongodb_host, options.mongodb_port)
-        self.db = self.connection[options.mongodb_dbname]
-        self.db.authenticate(options.mongodb_user, options.mongodb_password)
+        self.connection, self.db = connect_db()
 
 
 class BaseHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
@@ -90,9 +107,7 @@ class LoginHandler(BaseHandler):
 
         
         #calculate password hash
-        h.update(user_record['salt']+"--"+password)
-        encrypted_password = h.hexdigest()
-        logger.debug("checking {password} as {encrypted_password} against {record}".format(password=password, encrypted_password=encrypted_password, record=user_record['encrypted_password']))
+        salt, encrypted_password = encrypt_password(user_record['salt'], password)
         if (user_record['encrypted_password'] == encrypted_password):
             #we have a match, so set the secure cookie to the salt
             logger.debug("setting user_id cookie to {id}".format(id=user_record['_id']))
diff --git a/qbt_server.pyc b/qbt_server.pyc
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..6ce86ad1
Binary files /dev/null and b/qbt_server.pyc differ