Resources for the print article.
The home page for Amazon Web Services (AWS) is www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=3435361. From that page, you can register for an ID, download and read documentation (including code examples in a variety of languages), and participate in forums for AWS developers. A frequently updated Weblog with news and ideas about AWS is at aws.typepad.com.
All of Amazon's Web services can be accessed using either SOAP or REST. An overall introduction to SOAP, including XML examples, is at www.intertwingly.net/stories/2002/03/16/aGentleIntroductionToSoap.html.
For more information about XML-RPC, which preceded SOAP and is a simpler protocol, go to www.xmlrpc.com. Libraries for XML-RPC are available for all popular languages.