The main search page for Google has always tried to have a minimalistic design. However, recently, Google seems to have taken a page out of Bing’s playbook and now offers a way for users to customise the background of their Google main search page.

In order to make best use of this, you need to be logged into your Gmail/Google account.

Once logged in, there is an option on the bottom left hand corner of the screen to “Change Background Image”.

This allows the user to change the background with a picture from their Picasa Web Albums, or uploaded from their computer or from a public gallery.

In order to use your own pictures, the minimum image size is 800×600. The image is scaled as the window is resized.

The results are still displayed against a white background. It is a bit flaky and doesn’t “feel” like Google. But hey, if anyone wants to, here is it :)

Up till now, Google Doc’s has been a free service that gives the user an ability to create, maintain and store various documents online. It had functionality to allow the user to upload and read Microsoft Office documents as well.

Microsoft has now struck back by releasing free online versions of its Office Suite and giving the users an alternative to Google Docs.

Called Office Web Apps, this suite is a cut down version of the desktop applications and allows for document viewing, sharing and light editing.

The consumer version of the tools are free and store the documents on Live SkyDrive. The corporate versions can get self hosted versions of the applications using Sharepoint.

Being online applications means that the applications will work regardless of the operating system and have been tested in Windows, Mac’s and Linux based machines through various internet browsers.

If you have Office 2010 installed, then Office Web Apps takes advantage of offline and online editing and can present a richer experience for users.

Office Web Apps are also supported via mobile browsers and allows the user to view documents saved onto their Live SkyDrive account directly on their mobiles.

Read below on how to use Office Web Apps.

Using Office Web Apps

In order to use this facility, you can sign up to your Windows Live account, or navigate to http://office.live.com.

Once you have signed on, you will be presented with a new “live” page similar to below:

The page will list all recent documents created using Office Web Apps as well as giving an option on the right to create a new document.

The interface is uncluttered and is user friendly. Hovering over an existing document displays a menu that allows for additional options:

These menus allow the user to share a document, view version history, download a local copy, etc.

When creating a new document, the first thing Web Apps asks for is a file name

Because this is a web application, the speed at which the application opens is dependent on your internet connection. It can take a bit of time to open the applications themselves.

Word

Any existing user of Microsoft Word will be familiar with the lighter online version of the application. It has a subset of functionality, but enough common functionality to be a good alternative at a pinch.

Opening up the document locally directly from this interface won’t work unless you are running Office 2010. Note: 2007 does not meet the requirements.

Excel

Again, a familiar interface to anyone who has used a spreadsheet before.

The one thing I couldn’t locate in here was a charting option. Which is a big omission. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough, but given the limited functionality, I couldn’t seem to see it anywhere.

PowerPoint

This allows you to create quick presentation slides or brochures. A lightweight again compared to the full version, but it comes with a variety of themes that can make a good looking presentation quickly and easily.

Because this can be graphically heavy, it can get cumbersome to work with online.

OneNote

OneNote is Office’s version of a catch all information store for storing ideas, plans, etc. It can contain multiple “notebooks” that can have pages that can hold all manner of information.

The online version is similar to the full version and while it hasn’t got the place notes and clips everywhere, it has enough to allow the user to jot quick notes down and store in an organised manner.

Conclusion

Working with the online version can present a bit of an issue if you have been using the full versions and are used to having functionality that suddenly is not there.

However, the subset of functions available are usually enough to use on demand.

I don’t believe this suite will replace the desktop versions (I don’t believe that is the aim). But if required, this can be a good half way house.

To enable full integration, you will need to use Office 2010 which supports opening documents from the web.

Related Posts

• Live SkyDrive – Mounting as a Network Drive via Gladinet
• Live SkyDrive – Saving files larger than 50 megs
• Zoho Personal – Online Office Suite

Currently Live SkyDrive has a limitation of a maximum file size of 50megs per file. This is intentional to avoid abuse of the free 25gigs of space that it offers its users.

Users can use Gladinet Cloud Desktop to get around this limitation through the use of Chunking.

Chunking is a process where Gladinet breaks up a large file into multiple smaller ones (similar to multi-part zips) and uploads this to the SkyDrive account. Read below for advantages, disadvantages and how to enable this technology in Gladinet.

Chunking has the following advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

• Useful when the storage provider (in this case Live SkyDrive) limits the size of each file that can be stored onto its servers.
• Improves transfer speeds as multiple chunks are uploaded or downloaded simultaneously.
• In the case of a failed transfer, only the affected chunk is retried. This will reduce bandwidth usages and the “oh bugger” moments when you are at 99% of a large file transfer and the network falls over.

Disadvantages

• The files are stored as “chunks” in SkyDrive, hence shown as multiple files within its user interface.
• Once chunked, the only way to restore the original file is through the use of the Gladinet application. Downloading via the Gladinet client will restore the original file.
• Chunking should only be performed on little used files or files that are required for archives etc.

As above, there is a word of warning here. Chunking is not without its risks. Its always advisable to keep an original copy somewhere.

Prerequisites

In order to use this, you must firstly have a Live SkyDrive account. Click here if you need a guide to set up your own SkyDrive account which gives you 25 gigs of online storage space for free.

In addition to that, you will need a copy of Gladinet Cloud Desktop installed. There is a free version that you can use. Click here if you need a guide on how to set up Gladinet Cloud Desktop.

Lastly, you’ll need to ensure that you have configured Gladinet Cloud Desktop and mounted your SkyDrive Account.

Step 1

Click on your Gladinet icon on the mini task bar to bring up its menu.

Click on Virtual Directory Manager

Step 2

You will see the Gladinet Management Console with a list of all your online storage drives that you have mounted.

Click the little tool icon on the left of Windows Live SkyDrive (circled above).

Step 3

You will see your login details to Live SkyDrive along with an option for Chunking at the bottom:

To turn on Chunking, ensure the checkbox is checked. The default size of each chunk is 20megs. For Live SkyDrive, I would recommend changing this to something like 40megs. This is below the maximum size of 50, but should suffice for most purposes.

Once finished, hit Apply and close all windows.

Uploading Large Files

Once the configuration is complete. Open your SkyDrive folder using My Computer. Navigate to the folder that requires the files and simply drag the file across.

For the purposes of testing, I left my Chunking size to 20megs and uploaded a 30 meg file. Gladinet broke the file into two pieces and started uploading immediately.

Both parts were simultaneously uploaded to the server.

Once completed, the file will appear as a single file when browsing through your Windows explorer:

However, if you look via the Live SkyDrive website, it is shown as multiple files:

Downloading Chunked Files

Downloading a chunked file is as simple as dragging and dropping onto a local folder.

Again, both chunks gets downloaded simultaneously and when complete, Gladinet automatically rejoins the chunks and makes the file available.

Conclusion

Chunking is an interesting technology and Gladinet has had quite a bit of time to ensure that it is robust and safe to use with SkyDrive. I’m not the kind of person who would store large files on my SkyDrive account, so the use of Chunking is limited for me.

I did have a few gotcha’s while testing. One was renaming a chunked file using the Gladinet client does change the name displayed, but not on the Live SkyDrive website itself.

Also, I did have difficulty downloading a previously chunked (at 20meg) file after I changed the chunked size to 30megs.

My advice here would be to pick a chunk size and stick with it :) Changing it may cause unpredictable behaviour.

Relevant Links

• Introduction to Live SkyDrive – how to log on and use SkyDrive
• Gladinet Home Page
• Gladinet Blog
• Gladinet Edition Comparisons – between Starter, Professional and Premium editions.

Now that the latest version of Gladinet Cloud Desktop is out, my previous guide is now quite outdated.

Here is an updated guide on how to install, and configure Gladinet Cloud Desktop 2.0 to map your cloud storage as a network drive.

Windows Live SkyDrive is a facility that allows you up to 25gigs of storage space for free. The storage space is available anywhere and while its an excellent storage mechanism, it can get cumbersome dealing with uploading files and working through the web based interface.

Ideally, you want to have a folder structure set up on your computer so that you can just navigate through your SkyDrive just like you do any of your other hard drives. Gladinet is a cloud based service that does just that.  It brings online applications and storage to your local machine. Read below for more information on it.

Gladinet is a fully featured service that allows for (amongst others):

• Drive “mounting” (act of setting up an online storage like SkyDrive or Picasa or Google Docs as local hard drives)
• A Cloud based desktop that enables users to use online applications to work on local files.
• Task schedulers to cater for scheduled transfers of data (eg as backup)
• Smart file transfers that allows for encryption, compression and reliability.
• It allows you to upload images without resizing!! (If you use the web interface to upload images, they get resized automatically – this way it treats image files as data, so SkyDrive doesn’t resize or constrain the image in any way).

Prerequisites

In order to mount SkyDrive using Gladinet Cloud Desktop, you must have an existing Live SkyDrive account. If you don’t have one, you can follow the following guide to create one first: Live SkyDrive – 25 gigs of space for free!

Step 1

The first step would be to download Gladinet onto your machine and install it. There are two versions available on the website (http://www.gladinet.com): a Free Starter one and a Professional Edition. The Professional Edition is on a limited introductory offer, but as it costs money, I will use the free version You can download either of them on the following page: Gladinet Editions Download Page.

It comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions, so download the one that is suitable to your operating system.

Step 2 – Install the Application

Once downloaded, start the install process by clicking on the .msi file. Hit Next and agree to the license agreement. Hit Next again

Ensure that Start WebClient service and Register Gladinet Cloud Desktop to Windows Firewall are ticked and hit Next.

Choose a location to install the application to (I selected the defaulted) and click Next.

Click Next again and the install process will start. You may get an authorisation request from Windows which you will need to agree to in order to continue.

Once the install is complete, ensure that Launch Gladinet Cloud Desktop is ticked and hit Close.

Step 3 – Configuration

Gladinet 2.1 comes with a new configuration wizard. We will be installing the application as a free application. There is a professional version available. However, for everyday purposes, the free version should suffice.

Click Next (or if you have purchased a license, then this is the place to enter it).

I would recommend registering with Gladinet to receive future updates and news. This step is optional. If you don’t wish to receive emails from Gladinet, then simply click Next.

This is the main screen that we need to configure. You can add as many services as you like here. I prefer to start with Windows SkyDrive and add others as I go along.

For the purposes of this post, tick the Windows Live SkyDrive and click Next.

Leave all values as is. The only one you may wish to change (as I’ve done above) is to change the location of the cache. My c: drive is quite small, so I changed it to another drive by clicking the Change.. link.

Once happy hit Finish to complete the configuration.

Step 4 – Mounting Drives

When the configuration is complete, there will be two visible changes to your desktop:

There will now be a small notification icon on your mini task bar. Click on it will present the following menu:

In addition to this, there will also now be a new “drive” set up on your computer under the drive letter Z.

Open the Z drive by either clicking on it via My Computer, or clicking on the taskbar icon and selecting My Gladinet Drive (Z:)

Double Click on Windows Live SkyDrive.gvm

Simply enter your Windows Live Id and Password here and hit Next. Hit Finish to complete the mount operation.

Gladinet will then proceed to complete the configuration. If this is the first time you are setting up SkyDrive, a “Loading Online Storage Plugin” dialog box will appear.

Click on Yes to allow it to complete.

The creation process can take up to a minute to complete. Once complete, the following dialog box will be shown:

This is where you can specify your backup configuration. As this can be done later too (and I’ll write a post on this subject later), for now hit Cancel.

Your explorer window should now show Windows Live SkyDrive as a folder on your Z drive:

Double clicking on it will show you the contents of your drive just like any other folder on your local machine.

You can copy and move files to and from your SkyDrive account just like any other folder. Because the storage is cloud based, every time you transfer files to and from, it gets scheduled in Gladinet’s task manager and the transfer happens in the background.

Creating new folders using Gladinet defaults the permissions on the folders to you only (ie, not public).

Adding other Cloud Storage Types

This is as simple as going to your Gladinet Drive and clicking on “Click to mount [cloud storage].gvd”

Choose the Storage Provider from the long list of storage options and proceed through the very user friendly wizard to complete the configuration.

Using this method, I now have one place to access and manage my Google Docs, Picasa

Conclusions

As a simple drag and drop access to your online storage, it does what’s asked of it. It gave me a network drive that allowed me to access my online data stores and i can easily upload and download documents to and from my drives.

Currently, its one of the best ways to really make use of SkyDrive without having to go through a web explorer.

You can continue to explore Gladinet on your own by right clicking its mini-icon and checking out the various options.

You may also wish to read our guide on other storage and collaboration solutions. Click the following post to have a look (opens in a new window):

11 Free Services for Online Storage, Sharing and Collaboration

Relevant Links

• Introduction to Live SkyDrive – how to log on and use SkyDrive
• Gladinet Home Page
• Gladinet Blog
• Gladinet Edition Comparisons – between Starter, Professional and Premium editions.

The newest version of one of the more popular blogging applications, Windows Live Writer  is now out.

Version 14.0.8117.416 is part of the new Wave 3 suite of the Live Essentials package.

Most Windows platforms are supported, however the installer still complains when trying to run via Windows 2003 Server.

I’ve extracted the MSI package for Writer and placed it on my Live SkyDrive in case you need to install it for Windows Server 2003. Read below for instructions and download links.

You can download the MSI here: http://bit.ly/Writer14_0_8117_416 

A few notes:

If you already have an older version of Writer installed, you will need to uninstall it first. To be safe, back up your Plugins folder (normally found in c:\program files\Windows Live Writer\Plugins) and store in a safe place before uninstalling.

I uninstalled Writer using the Add/Remove programs applet in my control panel.

Once uninstalled, you can then right click on my MSI and select Install. It should install Writer automatically.

When I installed it, it didn’t lose my blog settings or my plug ins. Be prepared to set up everything again should it be required.

If you have any issues, feel free to place a comment and I’ll try and assist as much as possible.

Would appreciate a tweet/share/comment if you found the above useful :)

Related Posts

There are many screen capture applications out there and my current favorite happens to be Jing to capture, annotate and share screenshots. One thing it doesn’t do is capture entire web pages including non-visible parts (most web pages have as much content below the fold as it does above nowadays).

My favorite way to capture entire web pages as screenshots are now through a couple of Firefox add-ons, FireShot and Screengrab. Read on for more details on these add-ons.

Fireshot Add-on for FireFox (and Internet Explorer)

This is a comprehensive add-on with a free and a pro version that not only captures screens but allows the user to annotate, and edit the screenshot before making it available for copying to clipboard or saving. It also has an upload to web function that uploads the image to the web and makes the link available for use.

After installing Fireshot, a button is made available beside the search bar on the top toolbars that activates the screen grabbing functionality. This opens up a new window with the editor available and presents the user with the screenshot and options.

Note, the first time you click the Fireshot button on the toolbar, you will get a choice to also add it into Internet Explorer.

Above is a screenshot of a longer then a screen web page with some of the features from the free version of Fireshot shown. It has basic image editing filters that you can make to any selection that includes Greyscale, Blurring, Inverting colors, Outer Glow, Crop and Fill that gives the user a lot of flexibility to really make a screenshot pop.

You can get the free version from here: http://bit.ly/FireshotAddonPage 

Screengrab Add-on for Firefox

A much simpler version that provides simple capture methods without the editing components. This application is also an excellent way to capture entire web pages or parts as screen grabs.

When installed it presents a button at the bottom right of your Firefox window that you can left-click to see its options.

It allows for saving or copying (to the clipboard):

• The entire Webpage or Frame
• The Visible portion only
• A Selection (the window will go pink and you use your mouse to select the area)
• The window itself

A simple application and one that works well. Very popular if you want effectively a single click method to screen capture your sites.

You can get Screengrab from here: http://bit.ly/ScreengrabAddonPage

Related Posts

An increasing number of phishing emails are getting sent out asking people to verify their World of Warcraft credentials. The sad thing is that more people are falling for this every day resulting in forum posts like this:

I had a chance to look at my spam folder in Gmail and I was amazed to see so many emails from “Blizzard” asking me to verify my password:

If you get an email like this, the first thing you do is NOT TO CLICK ANY FRICKIN’ LINK IN THE EMAIL!!!!

Here is how you can spot a fishy email and some steps around keeping your WoW account a bit safer….

Ensure that you look at the email headers and see where the emails originate from. If you are using Gmail, the easiest way to do this is to click on “Show Details” on the top of the email:

Just checking the “from” address is never ever enough. In this case, some idiot tried to send me to a nice looking page to give him my username and password.. lovely.

If you need more information, see if you can see the entire message header. In Gmail, you can click the little drop down button beside the Reply button and select “Show Original” to see the entire trail:

And the real address is now shown:

The funny thing is that my Gmail address is NOT associated with any battle.net accounts :)

Some Suggestions to keep a**holes from stealing your keys

1. Blizzard will NEVER EVER EVER ask for your password. So if you get an email from anyone purporting to be Blizzard and asking for your username and password, its a hacker trying to get your hard earned account.

2. NEVER EVER EVER click any link in any emails that come from Blizzard. It may look like its going to the WoW or Battle.Net sites, but trust me, its not. If you mouse over the link, looking at the status bar on your browser will show you where the link is actually going. This is done by showing you one address, but the on-click takes you somewhere else:

3. If you are in doubt, enter the link to the Blizzard site manually in a browser. Don’t click on any links! (worth frickin’ repeating!)

4. If you are still paranoid, don’t even open any emails that look like these especially if they are not trapped by your spam filters. At the very worst, it is possible for hackers to put malicious code that can redirect you to sites that contains key loggers that can be used to steal your WoW and other personal details.

5. As a general rule, always be careful when using online cafe’s or other public places to log onto any sensitive sites. You cannot guarantee that these machines are not infected with key loggers.

6. Always ensure that your battle.net password is not easily guessable and is different from what you use for other sensitive sites.

7. Always ensure that your machine is up to date in terms of its updates and virus software and that you do run regular scans. I know a few people who have downloaded dodgy software and the “setup.exe” come frequently with a bootstrapper that installs a virus first and then runs the real setup.

8. The most important item that you need to ALWAYS have secure is your email address. Its amazing how often people think that it doesn’t need to be that secure because you don’t have sensitive enough information in it. But imagine how easy it would be for a hacker (once they have your email account) to “reset” any services and be able to have that sent to your email box.

Having your email address details is the first step in terms of having the ability to reset most things that address has been registered against. This includes financial institutions, your battle.net account, etc etc etc. At the very least make sure your email password is frickin’ secure!!

Summary

There is a LOT that can be written around the areas of keeping your “stuff” secure. I’ve only brushed on a high level some of the common sense practices.. There are entire sites dedicated to online security and best practices. Just saw a whole bunch of spam in my Gmail, hence why I thought I’d write something about it to convey my opinion.. :)

Related Posts

Related Posts for WordPress is a Live Writer plugin that I wrote to allow me to have control over inserting related posts from my WordPress blog directly from within Windows Live Writer.

Although there are plugins available directly for WordPress that allows for this to happen within the WordPress Dashboard, I hate the online editor and use Windows Live Writer exclusively. As such, I wanted to created Related Posts links within the posts without having to apply lots of intelligence around tags, categories etc.

It is quite easy to use and will add directly into the post wherever the cursor is.

Once configured, it can retrieve all the posts from your hosted WordPress blog and allow you to select one or more posts and inserts into the post.

It has the following features:

• Ability to store your blog details and settings
• Encloses the related links in DIV—>UL—>LI html links
• Allows for CSS class labeling of the DIV, UL and LI Links, so that you can control the look and feel of the links
• Gives an un-styled preview of the links to show you at a glance which links have been chosen and will be inserted into the post.
• Allows to insertion of “target=_blank” in the a links to allow the links to be opened in a new window if required.

To see installation and usage details, see below

Installation Details

This release is still in beta stage and hence is not available via the Live Plugins center. As such, the installation files are not in MSI format.

Additionally, this is created using .net 3.5 and the Live center only allows .net 2.0 compiled binaries at the moment.

In order to install, you need to download the following zip file:

Plugin Dll’s – two DLL’s are contained within this archive, one is the plugin code itself and the other is a helper library to allow Live Writer to communicate with WordPress via MetaWeblog API.

Unzip these DLL’s directly into your Live Writer plugin folder (usually found in C:\Program Files\Windows Live Writer\Plugins)

Note: there isn’t an icon available for the plugin yet, so it may throw an error when you start Live Writer.

Restart Live Writer to enable the plugin. You will see the new plugin under the list of your installed Plugins.

When you first click the plugin link, you need to set up the configuration. Click the Settings… button

Enter your Blog details here. This will be used to connect to your WordPress blog to retrieve a list of the posted articles.

The HTML formatting options allows you to place class tags on the containing DIV, UL and LI tags. Leaving them blank will allow them to inherit the default settings set up in the blogs stylesheet.

How to Use Related Posts Plugin for Windows Live Writer

Step 1: Assuming the Settings is completed, hit Retrieve Posts to get a list of all the posts in the blog. This can take some time if there number of posts in the blog is quite high:

Step 2: Simply scroll through the list and tick whichever posts that needs to be included as a related post, and click Choose Posts…

A preview of the relevant links will be shown. The user can make changes to the selected items and re-click Choose Posts… to fine tune the selection.

Step 3: Click on “Insert into Post” to close the window and copy the HTML to wherever the cursor is in Windows Live Writer.

Here is the html that made the following related posts content:

Notes

This doesn’t put a heading on the content. It just puts in an unordered list of the links.

My thanks to Scott (http://scottisafool.spaces.live.com/) for inspiration and making his code available to all to read, digest and create their own plugins.

Disclaimer

This plugin is a very simple plugin and doesn’t do naughty things like steal passwords etc. It comes as is and is not covered by any warranty. Feel free to use is and recommend any improvements or report any bugs you may find. This was written over a period of a few days only, so the code can do with a bit of a tidy up.

I will eventually upload this to the Live plugins center but until then, I’m looking forward to hearing any feedback (good or bad!)

Related Links

For users who like to have a private (or restricted) WordPress site, there are several plugins that can restrict access to only registered users. However, I’ve had to search extensively for a solution that worked well with the current version of WordPress (v2.9.2).

In the end, after doing all the searching and finding information all over the place, the closest i got was to take an existing plugin that used to work with earlier versions and change a couple of things in it.

Because I did not wish to step on anyone’s toes, I’ve detailed two ways of achieving this:

1. By taking the original plugin and making changes to it via the WordPress Dashboard
2. By downloading a modified version of the original plugin and following the original authors instructions using this new script instead of his original one.

Both methods are detailed below.

Step 1

In the Dashboard, ensure that the Membership tick box under the General Setting is unchecked:

Step 2

Go download Angusman’s plugin and follow his instructions to download and install this plugin. Once you have installed it, do not activate it yet as we’ll be making a small change to it to support the latest version of WordPress

Step 3

Back in your Dashboard, go to your Manage Plugins page and locate Angusman’s plugin. Click on Edit to edit his plugin

Step 4

When you get to the editing page, you’ll see the code for the plugin. Highlight the following code lines as below and delete them

Replace the deleted lines with the following

if ( !is_user_logged_in() ) {

So the code will look like the following now – please be careful here and ensure the line is inserted in the correct position. Refer to the image below if you are not sure:

The line you will insert will be directly below the comment that starts with “//Checks if a user…”

Click on Update File to save the file. You will get a “File Edited Successfully” message at the top once it has saved.

Step 5

Click on the Plugins link again in the Dashboard left menu to be taken back to the list of Plugins and Activate the Plugin.

Everything should be working now as described on the original plugin author’s site.

Alternative Method

I’ve got a “fixed” version of the file available here as a download if anyone is feeling squeamish about changing code themselves. All credit goes to the original author and the only difference would be to download the file from the link below and follow the rest of the instructions from the original site.

Download link: http://www.newbtech.com/Files/ac_authenticator.zip

Lastly, note that this will make your blog private to registered users only. This includes RSS feed links. However, this will not protect individual images on your posts if the user knows the exact URL of the images.

In my previous articles, I’ve listed of ways to get the best use out of Windows Live SkyDrive. This has consistently been one of the most read posts on my blog especially around using Gladinet to set up Live SkyDrive as a network drive on your computer.

Recently, a new product has come into Beta, that allows for the same level of functionality and allows the user to set up their SkyDrive account as a network drive without going through extended configuration steps that Gladinet takes us through.

In all fairness, connecting via Gladinet offers many more options such as connecting to other types of cloud storage at the same time (for example,  Google Picasa, Amazon S3 and Google Docs). SkyDrive Explorer only connects you to Live SkyDrive.

SkyDrive Explorer is a free product and is easy to use. It requires little to no configuration and allows the user to use their SkyDrive just like any other folder on their computer….

To install SkyDrive Explorer, go to http://www.skydriveexplorer.com and click on the Free Download menu.

Step 1

Download the setup via the download link and run through the steps to install the application:

When you hit Finish, the installer will close. At this point in time, there is no “executable file” that you need to run to start the application itself.

Step 2

Open up your “My Computer” and you’ll see the SkyDrive Explorer under the list of your “Other” drives:

Step 3

The first time you double-click on the icon, the following dialog box will show:

Put in your Live user details and hit Sign In

Step 4

Once authorized, your windows explorer will now show the contents of your SkyDrive account:

And that is pretty much it! Again, you can treat this just like any other windows folder and/or drive on your computer. The advantage of this drive is that it is stored on the cloud and so available wherever you go.

Warning

SkyDrive Explorer communicates with your SkyDrive account by HTML Web page parsing, which means that should Windows Live decide to change their content format, this application may not work any more. However, I’m sure that the SkyDrive Explorer folks will update regularly should any of their functionality gets disabled due to Live SkyDrive changes.