Microsoft has been quietly making SkyDrive easier to use. If you have a Windows Live ID, then you automatically get 25GB of free storage courtesy of Microsoft. If you don’t have a backup system on your computers, this is perfect for that. In addition to back-up, you can easily share documents, photos and videos with any one or group. You can instantly publish pictures or documents to your social media circles or on your website.
To get to your SkyDrive, simply sign in using your Live ID – go to http://skydrive.com and sign in.
Your documents are filed in alpha order and can be viewed all together, or you can click on ‘Photos’ or ‘Documents’ and they’ll be separated. A new feature is the ability to right-click on a folder or document and instantly share it with anyone – you’ll just need their email address. Your recipient doesn’t need to have a live account in order to retrieve and/or look at the document. Other actions you can do with a right-click are:
edit in your browser
open in Word/Excel, etc.
view version history
download it
move it
copy it
delete it
rename it
I’ve circled the other ways you can share. On the social side, you can share your photo or document to Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace. Your document or photo is instantly published. If you prefer, you can ‘get a link’ and put your link in an email that you send from your email program.
Do you want to make a document or photo available on your blog or website? That’s a new feature too. To do this, click on a folder, photo album or document and you’ll see the option to ‘Embed’ (see illustration below). Click on ‘Embed’ and then you’ll get the pop-up to generate the code. Then copy and paste the code into your blog or website. Cool!
SkyDrive is getting easier to use and navigate – faster too. If you haven’t checked it out, give it a try. What cool tricks have you discovered while using SkyDrive?
(Republished on 4-26-12)