I think this is a great suggestion. Linode is much easier to get started with than AWS if scalability isn't a priority. A linode VPS is just a standard linux s

I think this is a great suggestion. Linode is much easier to get started with than AWS if scalability isn't a priority. A linode VPS is just a standard linux server, while EC2 has lots of quirks. For instance, AWS/EC2 has a variety of types of storage, and their persistence properties aren't always what you'd expect. So, EC2 requires you learn how to run a linux server plus a bunch of AWS specific stuff. Linode only requires basic linux administration skills. If you are set on EC2, I found boto very useful for keeping track of my AWS resources.