I run several websites for various different things, including some of my Home Automation, including a plant database for the garden where I print QR codes on the plant labels (along with the name of the plant) to give the full information about where we bought it, when and details of it's blooming/fruiting/etc. However, I want to do this cheaply and securely, so I use Microsoft Azure . In this post I'll document how I set up a simple static website using blob storage on Azure and their CDN product to protect the site with encryption and massive scalability. I also recommend you get the Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer and install it on your machine as it makes dealing with the files much easier than the portal (although you can do it all in the portal in a web browser). Initial Setup I'm going to assume that you've already signed up for an Azure account and are using the initial credit or have signed up for some sort of pay account, be it pay-as-you-go or a full s
There are a lot of posts online asking Philips to add functionality to their motion sensors so that they don't turn lights off if a certain activity is happening or the lights were turned on by another means. There are third-party apps (most of which cost money) to add some functionality to allow this, but it can be done for free if you're prepared to send some JSON configuration to the built-in debugging page. "Wait, that sounds scary and difficult!" I hear you cry, but it is actually very simple... even if you aren't a techie. I'll take you through it step-by-step here, but all you need is a web browser and the ability to paste an edited version of the configuration into a web page and click on a button. Scenario There are many different scenarios where this can be useful, but I'm going to give you one of my scenarios here to demonstrate the principle. I have some garden lights controlled by a motion sensor and a Hue Button, but I can also set scenes v