Project Ideas

• 7 MLOPs Projects for Beginners
• Set up db with MariaDB. Backend APIs
• Use a free cloud hosting service

  • Theo guide. Internet likes DigitalOcean

    itHub Actions / GitLab CI/CD

• Efficient Docker image for Python; guide
• Docker + PyTorch link
• Python project setup; setup.py, .tox, pyproject.toml
  • setup .tox as described in mCoding video; want to make it so that testing suite has an easy time when it needs to look for code; done by “installing” the src code
• On Cloud
  • Be able to develop in remote Dockerized code-base
  • Deploy container to EC2
  • Deploy Docker container to VPS using Docker Swarm link and use docker context to work remotely (also ssh-add was used)
• Database migration with Alembic: Chapter 6, building data science applications with fastapi
  • FastAPI Ch 10: FastAPI app with Docker, Bigger apps
• Software for gym owners
• App that correlates food and medicine intake habits to how you are feeling; eg today I had fiber and 6hrs I feel it
• Model generalizability book
• Mortgage rates
  • Web scrape for mortgage rates
  • Website where I can sign up to get an email when mortgage rates exceed some value

Dev on the Cloud

Below is a snapshot of popular ways to get a real VM‑style instance you can SSH or RDP into—without paying anything up‑front. I’ve grouped them by the kind of service you’re likely to use first.

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1. Big “general‑purpose” cloud providers

Provider	What you get for free	How long	Key caveats
AWS EC2	1 ×t2.micro or t3.micro, 750 instance‑hours/month (≈one always‑on VM)	12 months after signup	Linuxor Windows; you still pay for EBS >30 GB and outbound data; credit card required citeturn8search0
Google Cloud Compute Engine	1 ×e2‑micro (US regions), 30 GB SSD, 1 GB egress	Always‑free	Only in us‑east1, us‑west1, us‑central1; no GPUs/TPUs; still need billing account citeturn4view0
Microsoft Azure	750 hrs/month of B1s (Linux or Windows) burstable VM	12 months + $200 30‑day credit	Once the 12 months are up you pay on‑demand; outbound bandwidth is metered citeturn9view0
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)	Up to4 × Ampere A1 Arm cores or 2 × AMD VMs, plus 24 GB RAM total	Always‑free	Region availability can vary; instances are pre‑emptible if Oracle hits capacity limits citeturn11view0

When to pick one of these:

• You want full root/administrator control.
• You need to install arbitrary software or expose custom network ports.
• Long‑running workloads or self‑hosted services.

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2. “Hobby platform” hosts (easier UX, lighter VMs/containers)

Host	Free compute allowance	Notable limits
Fly.io	Up to3 × shared‑CPU‑1x VMs (256 MB RAM) + 3 GB storage + 160 GB egress/month	VMs are tiny; credit card still required; pricing page can change without notice citeturn2view0
Render	1 free web service/container & one Postgres/KV instance (auto‑sleeps after 15 min idle)	512 MB RAM, 100 ms cold‑start, limited concurrency citeturn1search1
Railway	“Free Trial” credits that cover ~500 cpu‑minutes & 1 GB RAM/month before you start paying	Designed for staging/demo work, not persistent servers citeturn1search2

Why use them: seamless Git‑push deploys, HTTPS & DNS pre‑wired, no VPC/network setup. Great for small APIs, prototypes, or toy side‑projects that can tolerate cold‑starts.

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3. On‑demand development environments (browser or VS Code remote)

Service	Included free tier	Typical use case
GitHub Codespaces	120 core‑hours + 15 GB storage every month for GitHub Free accounts (≈60 hrs on a 2‑core machine) citeturn13search0	Instant dev box with Visual Studio Code—ideal for coding, not for public services.
Google Cloud Shell	5 GB home dir + 1 vCPU/1.7 GB VM (Ephemeral; auto‑shuts down after 60 min idle) citeturn4view0	Quick admin tasks or demos directly from the browser, no billing surprises.

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Connecting from your local machine

1. SSH/RDP: All of the “big four” clouds let you attach a public IP or tunnel through a managed bastion.
2. VS Code Remote SSH / JetBrains Gateway: Gives you full IDE experience while computation happens in the cloud.
3. Port‑forwarding: For web apps or APIs, forward cloud ports (e.g., 22, 80, 443) to your local tools.
4. Budget guards: Set billing alerts (AWS Budgets, GCP Budgets, Azure Cost Management) so a forgotten instance doesn’t blow past the free quota.

Quick decision tips

• Always‑free vs 12‑month promo: If this is a long‑term personal server, Oracle Cloud or Google Cloud’s always‑free VMs are the safest bet.
• Windows requirement: Azure or AWS free tiers include Windows licenses; GCP/OCI don’t.
• Arm experiments: Oracle’s Ampere A1 gives you four Arm cores for free; AWS only offers a time‑limited t4g.small promo.
• Simplest deploy flow: If git‑push is more important than root access, a platform like Render or Fly.io is less hassle.

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Next steps

1. Sign up with your preferred provider (using a separate billing email helps keep things tidy).
2. Spin up the smallest free‑tier VM; confirm you can SSH in.
3. Immediately set budget alerts and instance idle‑shutdown policies.
4. Snapshot any data you care about—free tiers often reclaim resources after 30 days of inactivity.

That’s it! With a free‑tier VM you can compile code, host a lightweight API, or run personal automation from anywhere while only paying (at most) for extras like storage or heavy network egress.