AWS Customer Support not like Amazon.com’s

AWS, or Amazon Web Services is Amazon.com’s cloud computing arm.

They do some pretty cool stuff like S3 storage and EC2 cloud computing.

Recently EC2 announced the availability of a free cloud “instance” (basically a linux box running in the cloud).  (google ‘aws free tier’ for info).  Publicaly they say it is to “To help new AWS customers get started in the cloud”.

Seems like a good deal to me.  Lets my startup save $200 in the first year and experiment with the cloud.

However, unfortunately I have already been using an AWS service – S3.  While many EC2 instances will use S3, the inverse is not true.  I use S3 on a standard shared hosting setup and it works well.  I would argue that this doesn’t mean I am using “cloud computing” yet (since I’m not running any programs in the cloud, just hosting some images there).

I applied to AWS Customer support to use the free tier, and I was denied, purely because I had already used S3 in the past.  Given my S3-using site is not even live yet, I even asked if I could “delete my entire account and sign up again” (what better way to prove I am new to cloud computing, if not a new signup?).

Regretfully, the AWS Customer Support refused (albiet politely).  Now I can’t understand why they would deny a free EC2 instance to a startup like me – given that I am probably the exact type of customer they want to attract with the free plan – new business, thinking of getting their feet wet with EC2, but unsure how to proceed.

So in conclusion, I have to say that the AWS Customer Support is not nearly as understanding or accommodating as their Amazon.com counterparts (who are absolutely amazing at acknowledging and re-shipping lost orders, for example).

All this has left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, because I can’t really work out why my startup should pay $200 for something almost everyone else who is in my position gets for free.  It seems like a poorly thought out, inflexible arbitrary policy.

And now I’m considering other providers.

Creating a “Transparent” Logo Facebook Profile Pic

So I’m trying to sort out a logo for the Facebook ‘Page’ for GPS Log.

Facebook presents a few problems:

• you can’t have a transparent pic
• the background of the pic is not a plane color
• the thumbnail you create isn’t created from the full image, but a cropped version

Thus, you need to have a border of about 30% on the logo (for the thumbnail), and this border looks pretty bad against the background.

The bigger problem is that any hacks you do for the background (like trying to copy Facebook’s 2-color background) can bite you in the arse when creating the thumbnail (you don’t want this background for the thumbnail).

These guys solved it in a neat way (with 2 logos, one below for the thumbnail).

But I didn’t like the fact there were two logos, and the fact that apparently the background doesn’t line up perfectly in some browsers.

I have another plan.  This one neatly solves both the 2-color background issue and the thumbanil.  Firstly, make sure you have about a 30% border around your logo (so it will crop+shrink correctly for the thumbnail).  Use a solid white background. Then add a 1px border with the color #d7e0e9 (the same color Facebook uses as it’s solid line between the 2 colors – update if nessesary).

Now your logo will fit nicely on the 2-color background (because of the border), and when the thumbnail is made, the border is conveniently cropped out.  Check out the final result.

Now all this could be solved if Facebook just supported transparency, but I think it’s a neat solution until then.