Archive for Microsoft SkyDrive
New SkyDrive App-Cloud Storage & Desktop Sync
Posted by: | CommentsI wrote about some new SkyDrive features on 4-13-12 and now the remaining newest features were released the week of 4-23-12 and they are great! If you have Dropbox, it’s very dropbox-like, only you get 7GB of free storage (25GB if you act quickly). I think I mentioned in my last SkyDrive article that I wished they would make it more like Dropbox as it’s rests in your system tray and is easily accessed. Now SkyDrive has finally made this change!
What the new SkyDrive Does
instant access to your SkyDrive from your computer on windows explorer or you can go to SkyDrive in the cloud- back-up and sync of your documents, pictures, videos, etc. across all your computers
- ability to access your files from anywhere – just log in with your Windows Live ID
- make a change on a document on one computer, save it and SkyDrive immediately syncs the document with the SkyDrive folder, making the updated document available
- apps are available for Windows, Mac, Android phones, iPhones and of course, Windows Phones
- SkyDrive icon rests out of the way in System Tray
- my SkyDrive icon is on the last row, last icon on the right. You can see my Dropbox icon in the third row, first one on the left.
Get SkyDrive for Windows
You’ll need to go here and get your Windows or Mac download.
Follow the steps – download
SkyDrive is being installed on your computer
You will need to sign in with your Windows Live ID. Do you have more than one ID? I do and I’m still working on some questions I have about that, but for now, having my data and pictures from my three computers in one place seems like a smart thing to do.
The install goes pretty fast, then you’ll need to start copying folders over to your SkyDrive through Windows Explorer. Make sure you copy folders – don’t move them. I’m keeping the same folder structure on SkyDrive and in Windows Explorer – makes sense. The actual copying and syncing process can take awhile depending on how much data you have. There is a limit to the size that can be uploaded. 
Once it’s finished, you’ll see the green check mark, indicating it’s synced from your local machine to the SkyDrive in the cloud.
Upgrade to 25 GB free to loyal customers
To get this free upgrade, simply right-click on the SkyDrive icon in your system tray and select ‘Manage Storage’. You’ll be taken on-line where you can get your free upgrade to 25GB. I don’t know how long this will last.
Now you can see everything on all your connected computers
The view below is from SkyDrive. I clicked on Lynn-DellPC and instantly see everything on my computer. It’s like having it on a drive. To get to music, pictures, etc. just click and navigate to where you need to be.
This is So Cool
It took quite awhile, but I think I have everything I was longing for to make SkyDrive robust, usable and easy. These new features might make it possible for home computer users to utilize SkyDrive as their backup. You may not need to pay for a backup system any more – something to think about.
SkyDrive-More Useful Features
Posted by: | CommentsMany of the Live services from Microsoft have gotten upgrades this year. This article will focus on SkyDrive and how to use it, why you’d want to use it and what you can store there.
How To Use SkyDrive
All that’s needed to start is a Microsoft Live ID. If you have a Hotmail, Livemail, X-Box or Messenger account, you already have one, if not just use the above link to get signed up. Then you’re ready to start adding documents, pdfs, pictures, videos – even .exe files can be uploaded. When you first click on the ‘add files’, it will bring up a screen where you can choose to add your docs/photos or whatever to a new folder or an existing folder.
Before uploading, it will ask what ‘permission level’ should be on that particular folder. Don’t bypass this step. The default is Public, so if you don’t want family pictures publicly viewable, select a different option. There is the ‘Only Me’, then ‘Friends’ and a couple of others. Be careful of the ‘Friends’ option as it’s based on people you have in your Contacts list and/or Messenger List and I’m not quite sure how all that works. I usually select the ‘Only Me’ to be safe. Then later on, you can adjust it or get a link to send to someone to share.
You can open Windows Explorer and drag files onto the window. The only thing lacking here is the inability to upload entire folders. Instead, open up your folder, select all the documents and drag them over into the new folder you created in the step above. Uploads are quite fast. I uploaded 360+ pictures and it took under 5”. I selected all my photos from within Windows Live Photo Gallery and there were folders inside folders. Although all the pictures were uploaded, the folder structure didn’t make it. So if that’s important to you, you’ll need to remember to first make your folder and then upload all the photos for that one folder.
Why Use SkyDrive
- It’s secure with the best encryption available
- It’s FREE
- You get an automatic 25GB of free storage (I still haven’t run out)
- Ability to set up multiple Windows IDs and link them for easy access to any of your documents/media
- Convenience – access your documents or pictures from any internet-connected computer and show people your pictures, work on a document (with the free Microsoft Web Apps), or download what you need
- Give someone a link to view photos, documents or videos and don’t mess around with trying to email them. Be sure to choose the option where the recipient doesn’t have to have a Live ID to see what you’re sharing
SkyDrive Future
Although SkyDrive’s come a long way, there are still big plans for the future when Windows 8 is released. AND – if you have a Windows Phone 7 (like I do), having your SkyDrive docs and photos instantly accessible will be a great experience.
Microsoft SkyDrive-New and Improved
Posted by: | CommentsWithout any fanfare, Microsoft updates Windows Live SkyDrive with some impressive features. Let’s dig in to what caught my eye.
New Microsoft SkyDrive Features
- 25GB of free storage (not new, but worth highlighting)
- no annoying ads anymore – thanks, Microsoft, this is much appreciated
- All your stuff in one place in an explorer-like presentation with folders listed alphabetically
- Sort through your SkyDrive stuff by clicking on ‘Documents’ on the left-hand navigation section and you’ll have a neat list of folders containing only documents
- Same thing for Pictures – click on ‘Pictures’, and instead of file folders, get ready for a really beautiful presentation of all your picture folders (I have illustrations below)
- The explorer-like interface also shows how large each folder is, the last time it was modified and who it’s shared with
- Now included on your main SkyDrive page are the Microsoft Office icons – just click one of them to start creating a Word, Excel, OneNote or PowerPoint document…don’t have Office, no worries, you can use the free Microsoft Web Apps to create, email or share your on-line documents
- Easily upload or create a new folder right on your main SkyDrive page
- If you have more than one Live ID, you can easily switch between or among your IDs by going to the upper right and clicking on your name and you’ll see a drop down menu, easily switch to another Live ID (not new, but useful)
- No more Silverlight – Microsoft has programmed this site all in html5 – this is a very big thing, although I couldn’t really tell you why
SkyDrive vs. Dropbox (observation)
Even with all these great features, I still have and regularly use a Dropbox account – why? It’s much easier to get to, open up and I can save any type of document from anywhere on my computer right into my Dropbox.
It’s so useful having the little Dropbox icon in my system tray and I don’t have to sign into it every time I want to use it. It’s also easier to send someone a share invite from Dropbox. When I’ve tried to share folders or documents from SkyDrive, with people, there always seems to be a glitch and they have problems. I can ‘pin’ my SkyDrive to my start menu (using IE9 only), but I still have to sign in—tiresome, but it is so much more secure.
I find I use SkyDrive more for storage and backup than for frequent document retrieval. Perhaps Microsoft will some day make SkyDrive as easily accessible as Dropbox. I use Dropbox for non-sensitive documents.
The benefits of SkyDrive outweigh the inconveniences. I’ve been using it for several years now and I like the easier uploading and I especially like how easy it is to get my photos from my Live Photo Gallery on my computer into the clouds.
Microsoft Office Web Apps – Free
Posted by: | CommentsMicrosoft Office Web Apps, a free, web-based suite of Office applications is now available. Not coincidentally, Microsoft Office 2010 was also released this week (June 15, 2010). In this article, we’ll look at what all you get, how to get it and why you might want to use it.
What are Web Apps? Microsoft has made available, for free, an on-line version of Word, Excel PowerPoint and OneNote. All you need to get this is a Windows Live ID. If you have a Hotmail or Live email account, or if you are already using some of Microsoft’s Live Essentials (photo gallery, messenger, movie maker), then you have a Live ID. Follow this link and get started.
The Microsoft Web Apps aren’t the full-fledged Microsoft desktop applications, but you can do your basic editing in a familiar web interface. If you open up a document in your SkyDrive, you can decide to do more detailed editing on your desktop with one click. This article will tell you what you can edit/change/do with web apps vs. the desktop application. For example, in the Excel web app, you can not highlight a cell and move it, you have to do a cut and paste function.
Benefit of Using Web Apps – SkyDrive (free cloud storage)
But let’s back up a bit and talk about SkyDrive – what’s this? Think of the Microsoft SkyDrive as your storage in the clouds, a kind of external hard drive. Below is a snapshot of my Office SkyDrive. This section contains only my Office documents. There is another section of the SkyDrive that contains my photo albums and other things. Microsoft gives an extremely generous 25GB of storage per account.
A great 
reason to sign up for Web Apps is the ability you’ll get to share your documents or folders with groups, just a few people, everyone, or just you. You can see in my folder list that I have a folder I share. The sharing feature is wonderful for using for work, clubs, groups or for family. You can share documents, photos or videos with people. You can put controls on sharing and let people only view your stuff, or you can let them have editing privileges. There is a history of who viewed/changed anything and also a place for people to leave comments on documents, i.e. changes, questions, instructions. Instead of emailing documents to yourself or someone else, put it in SkyDrive and only have one document instead of wondering if what you have is the last revision of your document! If you want to work on something at home from the office, put it in your SkyDrive folder and access it from home.
How Does It All Work?
So you have a Windows Live ID and you have documents on your computer you want to put in your SkyDrive. How do you get them from one place to the other?
I have an example below of one of my documents I’m saving to my SkyDrive. In this example, I’m using Office 2010, but I want to point out that Web Apps works with Office 2003 and 2007 as well. If you have Office 2003, your screen may look different from this one. When you’re ready, click the File>Save and then look for something referring to SkyDrive or Web. With 2010, you would click ‘Save to Web’, and then select the folder you want to put it in and the software does the rest.
To access your documents put in SkyDrive, simply go to office.live.com and log in with your Windows ID. Then you’ll see the below–click on ‘Office’ to be taken to your SkyDrive.
So now you see the document you put in SkyDrive and then you decide you want to add more documents. Using SkyDrive for a backup is a great idea. It’s smart to have 3 copies of each document/photo/presentation. One on your hard drive, one in the clouds (SkyDrive), and one on an external drive.
Microsoft first prompts you to select a folder to put the docs in, or to create a new folder. Then you’ll see the screen below. You can either open a windows explorer window and select multiple documents and drag them over, or you can click the ‘select documents from your computer’ hyperlink and add them that way. If you want to back up an entire folder, open the folder, select all the documents and click to start the upload or drag them over. Depending on the number and your connection speed, it might take a few minutes. At this time there isn’t a way to add a folder to SkyDrive.
After you’ve put some documents in your SkyDrive, take a look around at your options. You’ll be able to share them, download them back to your computer, open for editing either on the web or on your computer, rename or delete.
If you’re thinking of getting Microsoft Office 2010, you can download a free trial. Here’s where you can read about what’s new in Office 2010 and compare features with Office 2007 & 2003.
Many believe Microsoft released the free Web Apps to compete with Google Apps and it’s most likely true. If you’re an experienced Office user, you probably found Google Apps interface and features lacking. If you’ve ever opened a Microsoft Office document with a table or header/footer or other specific formatting in Google Apps, you quickly realized your formatting either disappeared or looked different than it did previously. Two different platforms and Google trumped your formatting with its own. Although Microsoft Web Apps is not meant for intense editing, it will display and retain your document’s formatting.
Features & Comparisons With Google Docs
- Web Apps allow docs up to 50MG to be uploaded — Google has a smaller size limit
- With Web Apps, your document formatting is preserved when viewing and editing in Web Apps. In Google, the nice formatting, pictures, etc. don’t show up
- If you upload a PowerPoint presentation with animation and transition effects into Google Docs, then realize the effects are not showing up and you decide to download the presentation back to your computer to edit, the transition and animation effects are lost forever
- Google doesn’t support the .pptx format which Office 2007 & 2010 uses
- Documents can be downloaded as a zip file with Office Web Apps
- Printing is not available from Office Web Apps. I saw that there is a print feature in Google Docs, but it never did go to my printer
Give Microsoft Web Apps a spin and see what you think. Even if you find yourself not using the editing features, using the SkyDrive as a backup source will give you peace of mind.
Microsoft SkyDrive & Photo Storage Upgrades
Posted by: | CommentsWho isn’t looking for places on-line to store data, pictures, videos, etc. Sometimes you need to access documents from another location. Perhaps you want a place to store and share your pictures, videos or work files. Kodak Picture Gallery just announced they were going to start charging for their picture storage. Free is starting to wane with some sites, but not Microsoft.
Here, we’ll talk about Microsoft offering 25GB of free cloud storage and the enhancements they’ve made to this free service as well as their improved picture storage/sharing/viewing services. I have a Windows Live Home account and a Small Business Live Account with Microsoft and it’s amazing how they’ve upgraded their free services and offerings over the last year.
Sky Drive- 25GB of Free Cloud Storage
Microsoft recently mega-boosted their storage limit from 500MB to 25 GB of free storage space. I was excited about that and had plans to move quite a few folders to the clouds for back-up and remote access. I quickly gave up because it was a very slow one-file-at-a-time-process. I didn’t have the time or patience for that. Wa-la – now you can upload multiple files in one of two ways: 
- Drag and drop files from windows explorer
- Select files from your computer – then the familiar box will pop up where you can navigate to the folder containing files. Simply select one, some, or all of the files.
When finished click on the ‘upload now’ button and they are uploaded. My uploads were very fast.
When you’ve finished, make sure you apply the correct viewing permissions to all your folders. They will be public by default and you probably don’t want that. You can choose to share with your network, contacts or just yourself. At a glance, you’ll see by the type of icon on each folder the type of permission it has. You can share a folder by clicking the ‘send a link’ button and enter in an email address. You can click the ‘do not require a Windows Live ID’ in order to share the folder. This is new as Microsoft previously made everyone using its service sign up. You can also choose to download files as a .zip file for large files.
Office Live Photo Gallery and on-line Photo Storage
Uploading, viewing and sharing photos on-line has never been easier. I blogged about Windows Live Photo Gallery earlier this year. I’ve got duplicate folders of nearly all my pictures on my Live Account in the clouds. The permissions and sharing features work exactly the same for photos as for document folders.
What’s new is the improved slideshow feature. Now, you can view your pictures nearly filling the screen with background colors that change to match the photos! Beautiful.
Conclusion
The multiple file upload has really sold me and I’ll be getting more of my documents safely stored on-line. I do two other backups (Carbonite & external hard drive), but it’s nice to have multiple systems and easy access to documents and pictures. Enjoy.
You might enjoy checking out this article from ExtremeTech that discusses 6 other storage services – some with interesting features.
