Enabling Amazon AWS Billing Alerts

To eliminate billing surprises at the end of the month, an Amazon account can enable billing alerts which will monitor usage and send notifications when threshold limits are exceeded.  This is done through the "Account Activity" page for the user.

Log into the AWS Console, navigate to the Account Activity page, and click "Enable Now".

The site will take a minute to process your request, and then alert you when the task is completed.

After alerts are enabled, on the same Account Activity page there will be a link to "Set your first billing alarm".

After clicking the link, a dialog will pop up; Press "Create Alarm" from here.

Fill out the form below; specifically, enter the email addresses where notification should be sent, as well as the US dollar amount which is your threshold.

After clicking "Create Alarm" on the dialog box, the alarm is created and enabled.

Disassembly of a Karcher 3.379 Power Washer

This weekend's fun consisted of breaking down an old electric power washer;  I have need of the high pressure water pump for a new project.

The breakdown went much quicker than anticipated.  The soap feed bottle just pops out, and the handle came off after removing two slotted screws at the base.

After the handle was off, the black accessory case on the back slid off (towards handle) with a few taps from a rubber mallet.

Then a T-15 screwdriver was used to remove about a half-dozen screws holding the two sides of the outer shell together.

With the case off, the water pump lifted out easily (nothing holding it in place except for the plastic casing being snug all around).

With the pump out, there was an elbow held in place with a "shim key" which was used to get the outfeed connector outside of the yellow plastic case.

Finally the hand wand attachment was disassembled in order to see how the outfeed water supply works.  As it turns out, just a few plastic moldings and springs holds the entire works together.

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting when I started the disassembly, but I'm fairly sure I was expecting something a little more complex than a water pump held together with about $5 worth of injection molded plastic.  In any event, I now have a much better understanding of power washers, and even have a salvageable high-pressure water pump to be re-used in another project.