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Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

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Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#41

Post by jaredsohn »

stoicjumbotron wrote: post #36
maxwelldone wrote: post #16

Don't know if this qualifies as cool but I built a single purpose site to list IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a grid, which runs on GitHub Pages. It doesn't use any external APIs. https://theshowgrid.com I built it mainly for personal use. I know IMDb ratings aren't perfect but it's a decent measure of mass opinion.

I saw the network tab while searching, and no API calls were made for searching. If possible can you elaborate on how you made the search like this possible? Also loved the minimalist design and also how you can see your recently searched terms at the bottom.

My network tab shows that a shows.json file gets downloaded upon site load so it should be able to search within memory.

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#42

Post by gitgud »

czhu12 wrote: post #35

My favorite stack is now google cloud run + DynamoDB. I built a little template for myself to quickly start new projects, that is also hosted with this free tier: https://forever-free-cloud-app-starter.chriszhu.me/

So it's using Google Cloud Run and Amazon Dynamo DB? Seems weird to mix cloud platforms like that

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#44

Post by aynawn »

maxwelldone wrote: post #16

Don't know if this qualifies as cool but I built a single purpose site to list IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a grid, which runs on GitHub Pages. It doesn't use any external APIs. https://theshowgrid.com I built it mainly for personal use. I know IMDb ratings aren't perfect but it's a decent measure of mass opinion.

Clever. Nice work.

Would you also add the average score per season ?

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#45

Post by rozenmd »

In running OnlineOrNot (https://onlineornot.com/) which itself has a generous free tier, about 5 days of the month I rely on AWS's free tier for AWS Lambda, I managed to run on Vercel.com's free tier with Next.js until around my 8th paying customer, and my business update newsletter relies on ConvertKit's free tier.

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#46

Post by maxwelldone »

aynawn wrote: post #44
maxwelldone wrote: post #16

Don't know if this qualifies as cool but I built a single purpose site to list IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a grid, which runs on GitHub Pages. It doesn't use any external APIs. https://theshowgrid.com I built it mainly for personal use. I know IMDb ratings aren't perfect but it's a decent measure of mass opinion.

Clever. Nice work. Would you also add the average score per season ?

Thanks. That shouldn't be difficult to implement. Added to the todo.

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#47

Post by maxwelldone »

stoicjumbotron wrote: post #36
maxwelldone wrote: post #16

Don't know if this qualifies as cool but I built a single purpose site to list IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a grid, which runs on GitHub Pages. It doesn't use any external APIs. https://theshowgrid.com I built it mainly for personal use. I know IMDb ratings aren't perfect but it's a decent measure of mass opinion.

I saw the network tab while searching, and no API calls were made for searching. If possible can you elaborate on how you made the search like this possible? Also loved the minimalist design and also how you can see your recently searched terms at the bottom.

Thanks mate. I wanted to build a no nonsense site and think I've achieved my goals for the time allotted for a weekend project.

The architecture is dead simple. Multiple times a week IMDb publishes bare bones datasets. I've a bash script to download them, format and load into MySQL from which I export two types of json files:

1) a file with all the TV shows names, id, ratings etc (shows.json) - this is what's used for search. It weighs 2MB compressed and I could certainly optimize but considering the low traffic I've stashed it for later time.

2) A file for every tv show with all the ratings and votes for its episodes. Based on your search, the specific file will be fetched to display ratings. This one file per show could also be optimized but looks premature at this stage.

You can see them here: https://github.com/dvnlgls/theshowgrid/tree/gh-pages/assets

Strictly speaking, a database is also not necessary but it serves 2 purposes: 1) I could query easily to satisfy some curious show related questions. 2) The datasets include a ton of stale data (like shows w/o episodes and vice versa), so I find it easier to cleanup through SQL.

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#48

Post by maxwelldone »

ohashi wrote: post #29
maxwelldone wrote: post #16

Don't know if this qualifies as cool but I built a single purpose site to list IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a grid, which runs on GitHub Pages. It doesn't use any external APIs. https://theshowgrid.com I built it mainly for personal use. I know IMDb ratings aren't perfect but it's a decent measure of mass opinion.

I like the simplicity, nicely done. On the homepage there is a giant empty spot on the right, not sure if that was intentional or something isn't loading. If there's nothing there now, maybe a screenshot of a sample show would be a nice way to introduce it.

Thanks mate. You're right, on big screens (< 5% of users) the empty spot is a bit of a concern. I'll try to add a gif of a demo. Honestly, this was a build, automate and forget type of weekend project. So I forced myself to stop adding features but can certainly find some time to improve it a bit.

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#49

Post by maxwelldone »

yesenadam wrote: post #33
maxwelldone wrote: post #16

Don't know if this qualifies as cool but I built a single purpose site to list IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a grid, which runs on GitHub Pages. It doesn't use any external APIs. https://theshowgrid.com I built it mainly for personal use. I know IMDb ratings aren't perfect but it's a decent measure of mass opinion.

Super-cool, thank you! How else could I so quickly learn which e.g. South Park episodes to watch?!

Thank you. That's precisely why I built this. Yesterday I wanted to catch up on Season 3 of Grand Tour and guess which site I went to see what to watch!

Re: Ask HN: What cool stuff do you run free-tier?

#50

Post by maxwelldone »

tyroh wrote: post #31
maxwelldone wrote: post #16

Don't know if this qualifies as cool but I built a single purpose site to list IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a grid, which runs on GitHub Pages. It doesn't use any external APIs. https://theshowgrid.com I built it mainly for personal use. I know IMDb ratings aren't perfect but it's a decent measure of mass opinion.

awesome work! makes it easier to figure out what to watch first in a new series, and even if it's worth watching. I also appreciate the snapiness due to not using external APIs.

Thanks for the kind words. The use case you mentioned is the primary motivator for the site. That's especially useful for shows you want to revisit or new ones where sequential viewing isn't necessary (like Top Gear etc.)
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