title: Getting started with AWS Cloud Computing and text processing
body: <p>I just started to work with cloud computing services since some processes really slowed down my machine. I created an account on AWS (12 months free tier thing) and spend more than a day reading through different tutorials, documentation pages and SO questions. 
  I know how to start an EC2 instance, how to connect via ssh and run python scripts but I still think the whole process of starting to work with a cloud computing service is giving newcomers a really hard time.</p>
  
  <p>My case: I'm working with python to process text data (e.g. cosine similarity) in medium-sized  csv-files (up to 1GB). As my first tries ended in really slow processing, I decided to turn to you guys with the following questions:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>More general: Which steps should one take when starting with cloud computing services (to run python scripts)? What is important to know, where to start (like first steps: choosing EC2 what kind of instance)?</li>
  <li>When working with AWS, when do you work with boto3 and when directly via ssh?</li>
  <li>As I'm not very familiar with hardware issues and there are like a thousand possibilities to choose from: What to look for when choosing an EC2 instance (especially when working with text via python)?</li>
  <li>Because I'm trying to process a csv file: What's the best way to work with existing files/store new files? Is it better to store them in a S3 bucket? How to connect?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Sorry if my questions appear a little bit uninformed. I did try to dive into it by myself, but everything is so fuzzy and all information I could find is kind of very general.</p>