SkyDrive now lets users share individual files within a folder without having to first configure that folder’s permissions first.

The Sharing options have been simplified. Users now have three sharing options that are accessible with a click on Share in the SkyDrive info pane.

• Send Email – This option can be used to share documents and a message to recipients. Recipients receive an email address with links to view, and if selected, edit the document.
• Post to social networking sites – Users can now post their documents to sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn.
• Get a link – Grab a sharing link to share it manually with other users.

Sharing was not the only feature that the Windows Live developers improved in the update. The site makes use of HTML5 uploads now which make it possible to upload files to SkyDrive and navigate the site at the same time.

The service’s file management capabilities have been improved significantly as well. Basic operations like creating or renaming folders that were not optimized previously can now be completed almost instantly. Other improvements include right-click functionality on photos and documents, faster creation of new Office documents, and a rebuilt photo slideshow application.

Watch this video to see a feature overview.

SkyDrive still has a lont way to go to reach the functionality that is offered by Google Docs. The new features do make life for SkyDrive users a lot easier.

Have you tried Microsoft SkyDrive? You can read the official announcement over at the Microsoft website.

Sadly the new update doesn’t address this, but the new features are indeed useful.  Firstly comes new options for sharing files.  Previously you’ve had to create permissions on a file or folder giving explicit permissions for sharing.  Now however you can share documents more easily, and even from within Microsoft’s Web Apps directly by just typing in either the emails addresses for people you want to share it with, or selecting their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profiles.  If neither of those suit you, the other option is simply to grab a link for the file that you can send on.  If you want to you can also post files and documents to Facebook or Twitter; though you should perhaps be careful how you use this feature!

Folder management is also being improved with support for creation of inline folders and with improved moving, deletion and download support, things that have always caused problems.  You can now perform these actions on a simple right-click, just as you would in Windows.

For people using the latest HTML5 compatible browsers there are also additional features such as improved drag and drop file addition and improved photo slideshows.

These have also been improved with support for RAW files, something Microsoft have been working on for a while and briefed me on about six months ago.  This will be a very welcome addition for serious photographers.

On the document front there is improved support for PDF files with better viewing of the files directly within the browser or, if you are using a browser that doesn’t have the Adobe PDF viewer installed, the most appropriate software on your computer or device.

Microsoft say of these new features…

In addition to some of the sharing and file management features, we continue to look for ways we can take advantage of modern browsing technologies. Today we rely on Silverlight to provide rich upload support. In this release, we’re introducing drag and drop as a way to upload files and photos for browsers that support HTML5 File API like Internet Explorer 10, Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari. And while your files are uploading, you can continue to browse and use SkyDrive. You no longer have to sit and wait for uploads to complete.

Microsoft say int heir blog post that they’ve improved many things about SkyDrive including the sign-in time and general actions.  Their aim is to make is simpler and quicker to use generally.

There are other rumours about new features that may be coming to Skydrive.  One of the most interesting and useful is that the service could be used to host email attachments for people using Hotmail.  This means the attachment would never be stored in the email itself but would instead be stored online.  For people like myself with ever-expanding lists of emails going back many years this will be a very welcome addition indeed.

Overall the features are welcome and generally excellent, but they’re only a stepping stone to the service users have been calling for, and they don’t address many of the more important criticisms.  Microsoft will be continually improving SkyDrive and we can expect more Windows 8-centric changes to be made in the run up to the new operating system’s release next year.

There are a great many services available including, to name just a few, Facebook, SkyDrive, Flickr and Picassa.  But what if you want to put photos online that aren’t for sharing, and are just for personal access or storage?  This can be more of a problem because by default these websites (with very few exceptions) will assume that you’re putting photos online because you ‘want’ to share them with friends and family.

Examples of photos that you might want to keep private include the full unabridged copies of your holiday photos, including all the ones of the drunk idiot, and perhaps insurance photos that you want to keep in a safe place away from your home in the event of fire.

In this tutorial I just want to talk about Microsoft’s SkyDrive as this this service will be integrated into Windows 8 making it easy, or at least easier, to upload photos to the service and it is one of the photo sharing services already built into Windows Live Gallery.

The other reason I want to highlight SkyDrive is that this service is one of the worst offenders, assuming that any and every new photo gallery you create is to be made public.  Your SkyDrive service is linked directly to your Windows Live Account, and you can link your Windows Live account to many other accounts including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and more.  You could then suddenly find your personal photos scattered right across the web without you realising it.

To make sure you have your settings set appropriately you need to log into your account at SkyDrive.com and in the top right click on the Profile link.  Once in your profile page click on the Privacy Settings link (see 1 and 2 in the screenshot above).

The default settings in SkyDrive don’t allow you to make everything completely private, which can be annoying if you only use the service for storage as I do.  At the next screen you’ll want to click the Advanced settings link near the bottom of the page, just next to the Save button.  This will take you through to another page where you can set absolute privacy rules for everything you store on SkyDrive, including your photos.

The most important setting here is the one labelled New photo albums.  You will probably find this set to Some Friends or Friends by default.  You’ll want to take this setting down to Just me instead.  The setting for New file folders should already be set as Just me but it is worth checking.  Below this are additional options to modify the privacy of folders you have already created.  You should press the Save button when you are finished.

You can also do this in the main SkyDrive view.  When you holver over a folder a blue information icon will appear on the far right of the screen (see image above).  If you click on this it will display a sidebar of additional options for that particular folder only.  Here you can also change the sharing settings for that folder by clicking on the Edit permissions link.  You can send people a link to photos stored here too if you want to share the contents of the folder.

It’s is very important to remember to change the folder sharing settings before uploading photos to the folder!  If you do this afterwards, you could find that the images have already been shared with other websites.  This means that those websites, rather than having a link back to the photo on SkyDrive, may pull the photo down and store a copy locally.

It is disappointing that some services, and of course I’m singling SkyDrive out here for particular attention, don’t offer you better privacy controls when you first create a folder or upload photos.  They may offer this in the future, but for now this is how you can keep your photos and files safe and secure.

Today Microsoft made the announcement that SkyDrive had been updated to full HTMl5 glory. What does it mean for SkyDrive users? The service is a lot faster and easier to navigate, provided that a HTML5 capable web browser is used to access the service.

Performance and speed has been optimized considerably. Core tasks like opening folders or navigating photo albums have been improved, with Microsoft citing reductions of 6 to 9 seconds for those tasks. SkyDrive is now making use of hardware accelerated graphics, provided that the web browser and video card support the feature. Microsoft furthermore removed “anything that slowed the experience down or got in the way of a fast, clean site”.

The layout of SkyDrive has been optimized. It resembles the Windows Explorer layout of Windows 7 now, with menus on the side and top, and the folders and files in the center of the screen. Users should now be able to reach their destinations faster, be it files, folders or albums.

The photo viewer has been improved as well. It now utilizes HTML5 and displays in a clean and rich manner. Infinite scrolling has been added to eliminate page switching to see more photos.

Microsoft has added HTML5 video playback support of H.264 files to SkyDrive. The videos can have a size of up to 100 Megabytes.

Internet Explorer and Windows 7 users can utilize jumplists to pin Skydrive to the Windows 7 Taskbar for access to often used features and sections.

Here is a short video of the new SkyDrive demonstrating the new features and capabilities of the file hosting service.

You can check out SkyDrive at the official website. Everyone is free to join and will get the 25 Gigabytes of online space.

Windows users can use the Windows Live SkyDrive Explorer software to access SkyDrive directly from their desktop. (via HTML5 SkyDrive Now Available)

It is possible to log into Office Web Apps from other locations in the world and use all of the features offered. The only downside currently is that it may not be presented in the local language but in English as those updates will be rolling out later this year.

A Windows Live account is required to use the service. Office Web Apps allow a logged in user to upload documents, edit documents and create new documents. Supported are Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote documents including the 2007 Office formats docx, xlsx and pptx.

The official homepage of the Office Web Apps service can be accessed by loading Office.live.com in the web browser of choice. Documents can be simply uploaded by using the available file uploader or by uploading them with third party software like the Windows Live SkyDrive Explorer.

office web apps

The main Office Web Apps window displays recent documents, document editing activities of friends that have been added by the Windows Live user and options to create new Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote.

Hovering the mouse over a document displays links to edit it right in the web browser, share it or check the version history, properties and download it to the local computer system.

A click on edit in browser opens a new screen that looks similar to the Office 2010 interface. New documents are converted automatically by Office Web Apps so that they can be edited in the browser. Most text editing and manipulation controls from Office are also available online. Documents are saved automatically, it is however possible to download a copy, share the document with other users or save it under a different name online.

excel document online

Office Web Apps on SkyDrive supports other features including work collaboration, mobile access by browsing to the same website and instant messaging.

messenger web

Office 2010, the new version of Microsoft’s document management software, offers Office Web Apps integration. It is for instance possible to send local documents to SkyDrive so that they can be edited from Office Web Apps.

No official software to maintain the files is provided by Microsoft. Thankfully some third party developers have stepped in and created applications like Windows Live SkyDrive Explorer or SkyDrive Synchronizer which is reviewed in this article.

SkyDrive Synchronizer is a new application released as an early beta currently which has a few limitations. The beta software can be used to one-way synchronize files, upload and download files, delete files on web or locally, schedule file operations and split files into smaller ones which is handy considering the 50 Megabyte file size limit.

The synchronization software is console based and the first step that needs to be undertaken is to edit the ConsoleApplication1.exe.config file to specify the username and password of the Windows Live account as well as the source and destination folders to be synchronized.

SkyDrive Synchronizer is a free portable software program for the Windows operating system (with the aim to make it usable on Linux via Mono as well). The software can be downloaded from the Codeplex website.

Each can then be accessed like any other folder in the Windows operating system. Integrating Google Docs would for example display all documents that are stored in that service on the local computer desktop. Gladinet will automatically synchronize the folders whenever data is edited, added or removed from one of the installed data storage services.

New online storage services and applications are added by providing authentication information in a simple form, usually the username and password to access the service online. Some, like WebDav servers require an url, IP or additional information besides the basic authentication data.

Gladinet runs in the Windows system tray on the local computer system from where it can be accessed and configured. It only takes a few clicks to add a new online storage service in the software. The professional and premium editions of the service add new features to the software including:

• Advanced Task Scheduler/Manager (Run Once or Recurring with Pause, Resume and Reschedule Support)
• Incremental Backup to Mounted Cloud Storage (with File Type Filtering*)
• Advanced Download/Upload Acceleration Technology (Compression, Chunking, Parallel Uploads/Downloads, Bandwidth Throttling)
• Encrypted Local Profile and In-Memory-Only Profile for Better Security
• IIS/Apache Support (Avoid Port 80)

Users who regularly work with the previously mentioned cloud storage providers might want to give Gladinet a try.