Recently (May 22, 2008), Microsoft made and announcement that Windows Live SkyDrive will be available to available to users from 62 countries and regions. MSN and Windows Live community will be able to enjoy this free, password-protected online storage.

Previously know as Windows Live Folders, the service was only available only to a few testers in the United States. On August 1, 2007, the service was expanded to a wider audience. Shortly after on August 9, 2007 Windows Live Folders was renamed Windows Live SkyDrive and the participation was expanded to testers in the United Kingdom and India. As of May 22, 2008, Windows Live SkyDrive is available to 62 countries and regions.
Source: Wikipedia

With 5GB of free online storage, Windows Live SkyDrive will arguably be one of the most significant free online service since GMail (Google mail). When compared to other free storages offered online such as Xdrive, ADrive, DropBoks just to name a few, the 5GB offered is big, but really not that big. Maybe Microsoft is planning on upgrading the free space gradually like what Google did with GMail?

So are there anymore limitations or drawbacks? The first thing, though the free space offered is 5GB, there is a file size limit of 50MB. To me, this is acceptable. After all, is not this a free service. But the thing I find annoying is that the upload page only have slots for 5 files. And SkyDrive currently does not offer any FTP or Windows Explorer integration of easy file uploading. Just imagine how long it will take if you are to have hundreds of photos to upload. Maybe we should zip the files?

The user interface of SpyDrive is simple, loads fast, esthetically nice and easy to use. Viewing uploaded photos is easy as it is presented in manual slide show. (And that is why I would not like to upload the photos in a zip file.) But uploaded videos will only show an icon. For the AVI and FLV videos that I uploaded, there is no playback or preview feature. Hopefully this feature will be added soon.

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- Written on Sunday, May 25, 2008 20:33 - 0 Comments -