SkyDrive, part of Microsoft’s Hotmail division, gives you 25 gigabytes of storage for free. Yes, you read that right. While I have posted about the glories of Dropbox before, SkyDrive serves up more than 12 times the amount of room for the same low figure…that would be FREE!
You might think that SkyDrive is just for photos, and it works extremely well for that, but you can put just about anything you want in it. Sure, it’s fun to share photos but you can also share documents and other files, too. Don’t feel that you have to share everything, either. You control access to your own SkyDrive, just the way you can with Dropbox. If you want to share photos, for example, select a current contact or add an email address and SkyDrive will send out an email to the person with a personal invitation which includes a link to the photos.
Let’s say that four or five friends take a vacation together. Instead of screwing around with swapping pics via email or Facebook, you can all upload your pics to the same folder or each person can create their own folder and upload their pics to that. Depending on the permissions, you can share the folder for viewing or allow anyone to add, edit and delete photos, too. Watch out for that one, though. Make sure you set the permissions correctly or one of your ‘friends’ just might delete some of your pics.
It should be obvious that you need a Live account to use SkyDrive, right? Head over to msn.com and sign up for a hotmail account, if you don’t have one already. SkyDrive is available with any hotmail account, depending on where you live, I guess. Maybe in your part of the world you don’t get 25 gigs but here in North America you do. Once you’ve signed up and signed in, you’ll see the SkyDrive link at the top of the window. Click on it and you’ve got instant access to 25 gigs of space to use at your discretion. No porn, please. Even if you are the only person who can see what you put up there, part of the agreement or EULA that you ‘sign’ says no porn.
Here’s how I am using SkyDrive right now, as we speak. On Saturday I was the official photographer for my niece’s wedding. During the day and evening, I took 1248 photos. How the heck do I share all of those with friends and relatives? Well, I am uploading them all to one of my Skydrive accounts. Once the upload is finished, I can share the album with anyone who has an email address.
Here’s a pic of the GUI for SkyDrive:
This is a small pic, the original was very wide but you get the idea. Folders listed on the left, details across the center and folder controls on the right, shown with a mouse-over or hover to reveal the small ‘info’ button. You can add folders at the top, hell you can even access these drives from Windows Explorer simply by mapping a network drive. Details on that later.
You know, people think Hotmail is a silly concept, only used by teens or tweens. It’s not. With SkyDrive, Hotmail has become real competition to Gmail and any other free or ad supported mail service. I’m not a fan of Microsoft in any way but Hotmail is what I use day in and day out for my email and online storage. Give it a shot. Tell ’em Brian sent you.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter: @_BrianMahoney