Microsoft continues to bring new features to SkyDrive. This month they announced improvements sure to appeal to photographers and those of us who need to share just a few files from a folder in our SkyDrive.
So let’s go over July 30 announcement:
- Support for devices with high DPI (dots per inch). For those of you who have a high res monitor/retina displays, now SkyDrive will detect your screen resolution and show you photos and thumbnails that match your screen’s resolution. So that means sharper, crisper photos for those of you with a high-end monitor.
- Photos can now be rotated from within SkyDrive – just a click will fix a photo.
- Animated GIFs can now be viewed in – yes – animation!
- View all photos in a particular folder by selecting a folder, then go over to the right and click the drop down next to the folder name and a box should already be checked down at the bottom to view the newest photos first. However, you will see all the photos in this particular folder at the top.
SkyDrive Sharing Files – New Views for Sharing
This is a nice improvement. Just click on ‘Shared’ over on the left and you’ll see first what you’ve shared with people, sorted by most recent first, then you’ll see what people have shared with you, also sorted in date order. You can click on the graphical view or the folder view to get this information. My image below only has what I’m sharing since no one is sharing with me 
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More Flexibility in Sharing Files and Photos in SkyDrive
In the past, you could share in only two ways – you could share either an entire folder or individual files from within one folder. With so many of us taking photos with our phone cameras and the photos being saved in our Camera Roll in the sky, it became tiresome and cumbersome to have to take some of the photos we wanted to share out of our Camera Roll folder and make a new folder to put them into for sharing.
Now, you can select photos or files from one folder or many and share them. You can choose to either email the share right from SkyDrive, or get a link to send. If you send the email from SkyDrive, your recipient will get an album-like email (like the second one below). Then when they click, they’ll be taken to your SkyDrive folder where they can view the files/photos.
No More Sign In Required for Sharing ANY Files/Documents/Photos
When SkyDrive announced several months back that no sign in would be required, I thought it was for all sharing items. However, it only applied to Office documents. But now, at last, you can send anything from your SkyDrive to someone and they won’t have to have a Microsoft account to get them. Even if they do have a Microsoft account, they don’t have to sign in to get them. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to share with less techy family/friends and they could never get what I was wanting so share. I’m very happy about this and will now be able to share with them once again!
Name Change Coming to SkyDrive
Although SkyDrive has been around for a number of years, they have recently been ‘asked’ to not use the name anymore because if infringes on a trademark owned by British Sky Broadcasting Group. Instead of contesting or fighting this, Microsoft has said they will change the name. We haven’t heard when or what it will be, so stay tuned. It’s just too bad that a cool name like this won’t be around too much longer. I think it’s because of the success Microsoft has had with promoting and beefing up the SkyDrive name that brought this to the attention of this German company. We’ll see what they come up with.