MGR IT

Strangely, Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services don’t seem to receive the attention of some of the newer entrants into the field, such as DropBox and Google Apps, but there are some very useful services to be had for free via Windows Live.  One of those is Windows Live SkyDrive, a file storage and sharing service.

SkyDrive requires only that you sign up for a free Windows Live account and immediately gives you 25GB of storage online.  Files stored on SkyDrive can be private or public and you can determine who has access to your files.  Files can be easily uploaded into a folder structure you define and downloaded via your web browser.  You can even download an entire folder as a zip file to reduce the time required to download.  Office 2010 will even have the ability to save directly to your SkyDrive.

Windows Live Photos is a photo sharing component of SkyDrive that allows users to upload photos via a web browser and share them with others.  Photos can be viewed in a slide show format or downloaded as a zip file.

Each folder you create on SkyDrive has a unique address, so you can link to folders from blogs, other web pages and e-mails.  You can even set up RSS feeds, so that subscribers will be notified when you upload something new to a folder.

SkyDrive has its limitations – it has a file size limit of 50MB and it doesn’t automatically sync files in the way that a service like DropBox does, but it is certainly a very useful service and the 25GB of free disk space is very generous.  The forthcoming ability to save and share files directly from Office 2010 will make it a very appealling platform for collaboration between workers in different locations.

You can find Windows Live SkyDrive at http://skydrive.live.com/

Tags: backup, cloud computing, Internet, Microsoft, online services, storage

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 11:02 am and is filed under Internet, Microsoft, Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.