Windows 8 deep dive: Get to know your SkyDrive app - winghareposto
Most cloud storage services already offer apps for accessing their servers from every leading platform, merely Microsoft is taking the model uncomparable step further by weaving its cloud storage service directly into Windows 8—if not every major component of the new Windows universe, including Windows Phone 8 and the new Office Web app.
Welcome to SkyDrive. Microsoft's cloud service has been in business since lately 2007, but nowadays its app lives front and center on the Windows Start screen, and it's reinforced to integrate with other Microsoft software and ironware. SkyDrive offers features and pricing plans that rival established swarm storage services like Dropbox and Boxwood. But because there are three slipway to memory access SkyDrive on a Windows 8 PC, each with its own peculiar strengths and weaknesses, it can be a pain to figure out how to best bend the service to serve your needs.
What SkyDrive does well
SkyDrive has evolved from humble origins (commemorate Windows Live Folders?) into a useful cloud storage service of process that competes favorably with established services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Apple iCloud. SkyDrive offers new users 7GB of free space, with the choice to upgrade to 50GB OR 100GB via a monthly subscription.
Despite the Microsoft logo, SkyDrive is relatively platform-unbelieving, and you give the sack access files stored on SkyDrive via apps on an Mechanical man, iOS or any otherwise device with a Browser. That said, SkyDrive really shines if you use Microsoft Office operating theatre own seven-fold Windows devices, because it has a bunch of neat features that tie into the Windows ecosystem.
For example, Microsoft has built a Web app adaptation of Microsoft Office directly into the SkyDrive app. Youthrone directly purview and edit documents in your SkyDrive folder honorable from your browser using a limited version of Microsoft Word, or make up a spreadsheet in your web browser and email it to a client (or apportion it direct to their SkyDrive) so you can some edit it simultaneously. It works just like real-time coaction via Google Drive, but the Office Web apps bid much features (like tracking changes in Word) than Google Drive's editing suite.
SkyDrive genuinely shines in this regard, because it basically offers anyone with an Internet connection the opportunity to access Microsoft Office products gratis, with a couple of limitations on how they parcel their work.
SkyDrive is a remarkably good platform for sharing data with friends and family, too. There's an option to share all but any file type in your SkyDrive folder via electronic mail, Facebook, operating room Hypertext markup language embed codes, or directly to other SkyDrive user. I particularly appreciate the option to share images stored on SkyDrive via a URL, which lets you use the service A a more secure stand-in for popular image-hosting services like imgur. Simply upload an image to SkyDrive (which uses Hypertext transfer protocol Secure encryption), and then select chooseShare from theSharingmenu and copy and paste the link into an email, an IM conversation, or your societal meshwork of choice.
Where SkyDrive falls short-term
Between the Windows 8 app, the traditional desktop app (which is really more of a plugin for File Explorer), and the SkyDrive Entanglement interface, IT's very loose to get disjointed roughly how you should Charles Herbert Best access code SkyDrive on a Windows 8 PC. The dual nature of Windows 8 is partly to blamed, but Microsoft needs to make it easier to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the opposite ways in which background users can access SkyDrive.
For example, the Windows 8 app is great for browsing photos operating theater other media stored on your SkyDrive, but you can't move those files around within your SkyDrive or divvy up them with others very easily, because you're limited aside the apps linked in the Part fascinate. If you want to share a direct link to an image or edit out a document online, you moldiness boot up your browser and access the SkyDrive website, where you canful generate links and move files between different folders in your SkyDrive.
You posterior't upload whatever files bigger than 300MB via the SkyDrive site though, so if you privation to upload gigantic files, you demand to download and install the SkyDrive desktop app, which creates a SkyDrive brochure in your File Explorer that syncs itself with your SkyDrive. You can drag and drop files or folders directly into the SkyDrive folder to upload them quickly, and this way you can too bypass the SkyDrive website file-upload limit of 300MB so that you can upload files equal to 2GB in size. The SkyDrive background app works with Mac OS X Social lion, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and even Windows 8, and then information technology's theoretically imaginable to have both the Windows 8 SkyDrive appandthe SkyDrive desktop app installed and running on your Microcomputer at the same time. This North Korean won't cause any problems (if anything, it affords you more power to operate how your Microcomputer shares files with SkyDrive), but information technology's way more than confusing than it needs to constitute.
SkyDrive is likewise a miniature overly closed for comfort. E.g., you can use up it as an impromptu paradigm-hosting table service by logging in to the SkyDrive website and generating a direct link to the epitome you want to show your friends. Only when you share that link, your friends will have to log on to their SkyDrive accounts earlier they can access the project you'ray difficult to share, unless you put the image in your Common pamphlet and share information technology from on that point.
You can actually make any brochure public aside opening SkyDrive in your browser, good-clicking on the folder you want to cause public and selecting Properties > Share > Get a link > Public and clicking the Make public button. This allows anyone to view files in this folder without having to get-go log on to SkyDrive, which makes it easier for you to use SkyDrive as a subjective file host.
Also, don't bury that everything you store on SkyDrive is subject to the Code of behavior for Microsoft services, and that you can have your Microsoft account suspended for uploading anything that Microsoft believes to be in breach of that code. Microsoft frowns upon (among some other things) material that depicts full or partial nudity, grossness, and complimentary violence. Your SkyDrive account will constitute monitored for potential violations, and if Microsoft chooses to debar your account, you will fall behind access to everything tied to your Microsoft score. That includes (but is non limited to) your SkyDrive score, your Xbox Live accounting, and the Windows Store.
Headstone options and settings
No matter which gimmick you use to access SkyDrive, you'll see the same familiar with lineup of blue rectangular tiles subsequently you log in with your Microsoft account. The options and settings available to you depend on which version of SkyDrive you're accessing, but for the purposes of this article we're going to highlight how you use the Windows 8 app on a tab, smartphone, operating room PC.
Using the Windows 8 SkyDrive app is pretty intuitive: Tapping a file leave open it, and tapping a folder lets you dive appropriate into IT.Swiping up from the bottom of the screen (or simply right-clicking if you'Re rocking a traditional creep and keyboard) on the main SkyDrive page brings dormy a BAR with options to organize your SkyDrive by uploading new files, creating new folders, swapping 'tween a tile-based operating theatre detailed view of your SkyDrive files, or selecting everything at once. To upload files to SkyDrive via the Windows 8 app, sporting swipe risen from the hind end and tap Upload, then use the file browser that opens to find the file(s) you lack to upload, tap them and murder the Add to SkyDrive button.
You privy share your files and folders with other apps and the Cyberspace at large by tapping the Share bewitch, and you can use the Search charm to search for files and folders within your SkyDrive. You won't find much of interest in the SkyDrive Settings menu, just a optic representation of how much available store you'atomic number 75 currently using and an option to upgrade your storage plan by tapping the Manage storage button.
SkyDrive tips and tricks
SkyDrive has a Recycle Bin that works just like the recycle bin connected your Windows desktop, and files you send there don't count toward your SkyDrive depot limit, thusly you can use it as a temporary holding area for files if you unintentionally a-ok over your storage limit. Be thorough when doing this, as Microsoft guarantees conservation of files in the Recycle Bin for onlythree years after you discard them. Files Crataegus laevigata remain in your SkyDrive recycle binful for leading to 30 days, but Microsoft will erase them sooner if the reprocess bin grows larger than 10 percentage of your maximum SkyDrive space.
Also, as of this writing, the Berth Entanglement apps are available loneif you access SkyDrive via the website. If the notion of collaborating in period on documents with remote coworkers sounds appealing, make sure you open the document in question from the SkyDrive website and not from the SkyDrive Windows 8 app sol you terminate view what changes your collaborators are making as they make them. We hope Microsoft will update the SkyDrive apps, but, in the lag, you can e'er access the SkyDrive website via the Chrome mobile browser if you want to edit Berth documents along your iPad or Android phone.
Alternatives to SkyDrive
As mentioned early, there are a phone number of excellent cloud computer storage services to choose from if SkyDrive doesn't suit you. Dropbox, Boxwood, and Google Drive are all excellent alternatives, but only Box has a Windows 8 app at this clip (Microsoft confirmed during the Build 2012 keynote that a Dropbox app for Windows 8 is coming shortly).
Boyfriend editor and PC enthusiast Alex Cocilova recently published an overview of 11 victorious alternatives to Microsoft's Windows 8 apps, and helium called out All My Storage as an excellent alternative to SkyDrive, because it lets you connec your accounts connected Dropbox, Box, and SkyDrive and see complete your disparate cloud data in a single unified app. You can download an ad-hanging version gratis in the Windows Store, but I commend shelling out $3 for the full version if you ask a Windows 8 app that lets you manage your cloud storage without locking yourself within the Windows ecosystem.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/455618/windows-8-deep-dive-get-to-know-your-skydrive-app.html
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