16 Redesigning my Portfolio Website

Published on Aug 18, 2025 A New Era of AI-Powered Coding Begins I have installed Cursor on my laptop this weekend, and I am amazed at how much it speeds up my coding. I have a new debugging buddy!! This week, I have made several updates to the Portfolio website. The Challenge: When OpenAI Falls Short In my previous post, I shared the excitement of implementing a chatbot based on ChatGPT for my portfolio website. The initial experience was promising - I successfully created content embeddings and integrated them with OpenAI's API. However, as many developers know, relying on a single service provider can lead to unexpected roadblocks. When my OpenAI account encountered issues, I faced a critical decision: abandon the chat functionality or find an alternative solution. I chose the latter, embarking on a journey that would transform my portfolio's AI capabilities and teach me valuable lessons about building robust, fallback-ready systems. The Migration: Embracing Open Source AI The transition from OpenAI to Hugging Face wasn't just a simple API swap - it was a complete architectural evolution. Here's what I learned: 1. Model Selection Complexity Finding the right model on Hugging Face proved more challenging than expected. After testing several options: microsoft/DialoGPT-medium - No inference provider available gpt2 and distilgpt2 - Limited conversational capabilities Qwen/Qwen3-4B - Perfect fit with the nebius provider 2. Database Architecture Evolution The migration also prompted a database upgrade from MongoDB to Neon PostgreSQL. This wasn't just about changing providers - it was about building a more scalable, production-ready foundation for my portfolio. Technical Implementation: Building Resilience Streaming Responses for Better UX One of the most significant improvements was implementing streaming text responses. Instead of waiting for complete AI responses, users now see text appear word-by-word, creating a ChatGPT-like experience: // Streaming implementation