Windows Live SkyDrive has been announced as the official name of Microsoft’s new online hard drive storage service. Windows Live SkyDrive was previously known as Windows Live Folders, and acts as an online storage tool, granting 500 MB of space for users to save, access and manage files from online.
Some new updates have been included with the rename, including drag’n'drop file upload (good for multiple files), the addition of a recently viewed section for the folders of other SkyDrive users you’ve checked out, and a thumbnails view. There’s also an embed option for easy sharing of files on your blog or website, similar in function to box.net and an updated user interface.
Privacy settings for Windows Live SkyDrive let you make folders public or private. SkyDrive is now available to users in the UK and India, and access to SkyDrive has also been penned for inclusion with the Windows Live start page upgrades.
In previous versions of Windows Live Messenger, you could share files with another user via the sharing folder window. When files were added to the sharing folder for that particular person, the file automatically was transferred to the corresponding computer when the other computer was online. This meant that the folder was available to both computers. If a user deleted a shared file, for example, that file was also deleted from the corresponding computer’s sharing folder.
The Sharing Folder feature has been discontinued in the latest version of Windows Live Messenger (2009) and is replaced with access to Windows Live SkyDrive instead. SkyDrive is a separate downloadable application that lets you use a shareable 25GB space elsewhere (an example of “cloud computing”) for files and folders, including photos, that you want to share with others.
Password-protected and bundled with an antivirus program, SkyDrive keeps track of other users you’ve identified as people with whom you’re willing to share files, and it lets you know of any new additions, deletions, or changes to the material in your shared folders. You can choose people from your lists in a number of social networks, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Hi5, and Tagged, among others.
SkyDrive provides the following features:
• 25GB of storage
• Individual file sizes up to 50MB
• Folders
• Permissions at folder levels
• Permissions at file levels
• Shared folders
• Public folders
• Access permissions within social networks
