Tag Archives: Amazon

Amazon S3 Pricing Explained

Apr 30, 2009 by Matt | Posted in Services and Tools 6 Comments

Amazon Web Services Amazon S3 is a service that allows you to host files of all kinds very cheaply. You can host images and podcast files to take the strain off the server that runs your website; you can hook into the API and use S3 to store data uploaded by users in a web app. You could even backup your personal files from your computer to S3. With a maximum individual file size of 5GB, it’s perfect for distributing an independent film or software.

One major point of confusion with S3 is pricing. How much does it cost, really?

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Amazon Auto Affiliate Linker

Aug 19, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Monetization 4 Comments

Prolific plugin author Joost de Valk has put together a WordPress plugin that’s simple in function and insanely useful.

Are you a member of Amazon Associates? Amazon’s widely-used affiliate program can be an effective way to monetize a blog, especially if the blog publishes book reviews, or something of the sort. However, it’s a bit of a pain to, when writing a post, traipse over to associates.amazon.com, log in, and go through the menus to generate an affiliate link, search for the product you want, and paste the resulting URL into your post.

Enter Amazon Auto Affiliate Linker. Install the plugin, tell it what your Associates ID is, and go back to blogging. Now you can skip the Associates dashboard when you write posts. Just go to Amazon.com to search for the book, and copy the URL to the product listing. From there you can use that ordinary URL in your post, and the plugin will automatically add your Associates ID when you press publish. Simple, I told you.

Amazon Debuts New Design, Pulls it Next Day

Oct 28, 2007 by Matt | Posted in Design No Comments

Yesterday, Amazon changed their design. Oddly, though, it had been replaced with the original by this morning. Even more strangely, this isn’t the first time this has happened. About a month ago, an earlier version of this design was put online, only to be removed the next day. Are they testing a new design, but they’re not quite ready to make it permanent?

Luckily, I was smart enough to snag a screenshot of the new design: