Blog 4: Change of Plans/Welcome to My Website!
James P -
I made a mistake. Last week, I experimented with and eventually bought all the parts I would need to make 2 full PCs. So, the plan for this week was to actually delve into how to actually build those PCs. Last week, however, I made the mistake of underestimating how long all these parts would take to arrive. By the time I ordered all the parts, they were set to ship at various times between when I ordered them and March 4th. Since all the parts wouldn’t arrive until the next week, I decided to postpone actually building all the computers for my next blog and spend this blog getting ahead on activities from future weeks.
The first thing I focused on this week was getting started on building my website. The purpose of this website is to provide a more in-depth showcase of this project as a whole. It will include more details about what I will be achieving through this project as well as showcase some elements of this project, like tools to help find affordable components and a download to the manual of building an affordable computer. The first step to getting this website up and running was to figure out how I wanted it to look. Using HTML (code for building websites), I created a basic design, noting down what looked nice and what I wanted to add until I had a general outline for my website. From there, I started setting up the website itself in WordPress. I got a domain name at jpbudgetpcs.com and started using a website builder called raft. Using raft, I started to make the website look like my outline until it was at a point where I was happy with my progress. I added some extra pages and elements until I had a rudimentary, yet working website. You can find this website at: Budget Pcs or by searching jpbudgetpcs.com. Note that this website is still a very rough draft, over the course of my project I will be working on it so that the website is completed by the time my project is done.
The second part of this week was spent working on one of the tools to help others build affordable PCs, namely an eBay product scraper. Essentially, what I did was make a bot that searches eBay to find the most affordable as well as the most powerful GPUs and CPUs according to one’s budget. This next part may be a little confusing for those without much technical background, but I’ll try to explain it in the simplest terms. The first step to make this bot is to find out a way to gather data from eBay. To do this, I utilized eBay’s API, a program that eBay created that allows users to get data from eBay listings. From there, I used the API to create a program that works like this: Using my Google Chrome extension as the frontend, the program prompts the user for details regarding the parts they are searching for, specifically whether it is a CPU or GPU, their maximum budget, and whether they’d like to focus on affordability or performance. Then, using that data, the program prompts my python code as the backend and returns either the most affordable or powerful GPU/CPU based on the user selection, calculated using benchmark data from PCPartPicker. Then, the program displays that data to the frontend through the Chrome extension. I’m simplifying a lot, but if anyone is interested in learning more about the details, I’m willing to delve deeper. I’ve also attached a video demonstration of my project below.
By the end of this week, I had started on the rough draft for my website as well as completed one of the programs meant to aid those wanting to experiment with affordable computer building. As of March 1, nearly all of the components that I bought last week have arrived, but I am still missing two components, the last of which arrives March 4. So, the plan for my next blog will be to actually start making both of those computers, so stay tuned for next week where I will start putting some of this research to use!
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