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Month: May 2007
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Woo hoo
The powers that be at O’Reilly have accepted my book proposal. Next comes the finalizing of the TOC to attach to the book contract and then The Start of Writing.
I still don’t want to talk about the book topic–it’s a surprise. I’ll have more on it when I’m closer to finishing. I can say that it will be the largest book I’ve written, and one of the most complex. Also, knock on wood, the most beautiful book I’ve written. (Tease! Tease!)
I have been contemplating whether I’d be able to continue the weblog while working on the book. My first inclination was to take the rest of the spring and summer off and just focus on writing. I decided, instead, on a compromise: read weblogs and write to my own on the weekend, and focus on the book during the week.
I’ll need a break from writing with a book of this size and nature, and having a regular schedule should prevent burn out. I may need to spend 10-12 hours a day during the week, but I want my weekends off. I need to be better disciplined, though. I must stop checking my aggregator in the morning, and to fight the urge to immediately respond to every interesting story that occurs elsewhere. I also need to set aside time every day to get out and walk. Visit parks. Knock this pasty white, limp, flabby, writer’s body into shape. Where once I was cherry pie–fresh, tart, and sweet–I’m now blancmange.
I still want to get the work planned for this site finished and plug-ins uploaded for you all to use if you wish. I also would like to get MissouriGreen finished. Out with the fancy layout, in with whatever I can put together reasonably quickly that won’t look too stupid.
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Amazon S3 pricing
Amazon just sent a letter detailing price changes for the S3 service. They’re as follows:
Current bandwidth price (through May 31, 2007)
$0.20 / GB – uploaded
$0.20 / GB – downloadedNew bandwidth price (effective June 1, 2007)
$0.10 per GB – all data uploaded$0.18 per GB – first 10 TB / month data downloaded
$0.16 per GB – next 40 TB / month data downloaded
$0.13 per GB – data downloaded / month over 50 TB
Data transferred between Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2 will remain free of chargeNew request-based price (effective June 1, 2007)
$0.01 per 1,000 PUT or LIST requests
$0.01 per 10,000 GET and all other requests*
* No charge for delete requestsStorage will continue to be charged at $0.15 / GB-month used.
The reason for the change is also given in the email:
There are two primary costs associated with uploading and downloading files: the cost of the bandwidth itself, and the fixed cost of processing a request. Consistent with our cost-following pricing philosophy, we determined that the best solution for our customers, overall, is to equitably charge for the resources being used – and therefore disaggregate request costs from bandwidth costs.
As regards to who is going to be impacted the most, sites which host against S3 that have a lot of RESTful activity are going to be seeing new charges, and it will be interesting to see what happens in this regard. This change also encourages such sites to look at using EC2 for their processing, as well as S3 for their storage.
I don’t have detailed information about how many PUT and LIST requests I chalk up a month, but this will most likely impact positively on me–I should be paying less, because most of my bandwidth costs are associated with serving up the images, an activity which doesn’t use a PUT or a LIST. Hard to say, though.
This is the risk you take when you use a centralized service: changes in terms of service. This is the main reason I avoid it–that and issues of reliability. Chances are, it’s still cheaper to host at S3 rather than locally, but we’ll see. Again, though, I’m small peanuts to the service.
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Everything is Misc
I received a comp copy of David Weinberger’s new book, Everything is Miscellaneous. I’ve only glanced through it and want to withhold comment until I’ve read it completely. Just from my quick glance, the writing looks good, though David and I typically don’t agree on data issues. I appreciate the copy.
Speaking of such, I also got a copy of O’Reilly’s Web 2.0: Principles and Best Practices. I also need to write on this one eventually, but I’m still pondering what to say.
Free books make me happy.