A closer look at Windows Live SkyDrive and SDExplorer
David Pogue, a truly nice guy, an unabashed Mac fan, a Yale graduate with a degree in music, a blogger for the New York Times Technology section, an author of technology books, a really good presenter on technology and other topics and a resident of Westport CT, recently penned “A Closer Look at Windows Live”. His closing line, “It’s worth the humiliation to spread the word.” sums up his appreciation for the Windows Live services and applications.
Windows Live is Microsoft’s free collection of applications like Windows Live Photo Gallery, a photo tool, Windows Live Mail, an email client, or Windows Live Writer, a blogging tool. I used Window Live Writer to pen this post. It is also a collection of online services live Hotmail and Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Calendar or SkyDrive.
Pogue’s discovery of SkyDrive is quite possibly what inspired his article. SkyDrive is a free, 25Gb online storage space. You can backup files to it. Post and share photos and integrate it directly into Windows Explorer.
There are limitations on the size of what you can upload and what you can share. (See About Windows Live SkyDrive for more information.) The largest file that you can upload is 50MB. However, SDExplorer Pro ($13.75) lets you upload larger files. I successfully tested uploading a 60GB video to check this out. This may be a violation of Microsoft’s Terms of Use for SkyDrive.
SDExplorer is a Windows utility that integrates SkyDrive into Windows Explorer on your computer. There is a free version and a pro version (mentioned above). Once SDExplorer is installed on your Windows computer, your online SkyDrive storage shows up in Windows Explorer, as you can see in the image below.
The first time you double click on the SDExplorer icon brings up a SkyDrive Explorer logon dialog.
After you logon you can navigate your SkyDrive as if it were a drive on your computer.
Use drag and drop, copy/paste and other Windows Explorer functions on SkyDrive as if it were a local device.
SkyDrive + SDExplorer has its limitations. Uploading files takes a lot more time than downloading them due to the asymmetric Internet connections we all have. I have a very fast Internet connection but my upload speed is 1/6th of my download speed. The speed of your Internet connection has a material impact on cloud storage functionality.
SkyDrive is great. It is large. It is free. But it needs to evolve. It will be great once Microsoft integrates Live Mesh synchronization service and SkyDrive. Until then…
You might want to take a look at How to Email Photos to Your Free 25GB Windows Live SkyDrive to learn more about using SkyDrive.