Windows Live SkyDrive Beta (the new name for Folders)

According to LiveSide Windows Live SkyDrive Beta has be officialy confirmed as the new name for Windows Live Folders Beta.

And it now seems to work in the UK.

And apparently the've added a host of new features including:

LiveSide wrote:

• Drag and drop file upload, making it easy to upload multiple files. Previously you were limited to manually selecting 5 files at a time, which made uploading a time consuming process.
• Navigational controls to move quickly beween files
• A "recently viewed" section showing other users' Skydrive folders you have browsed
• Thumbnails view, already announced by the Skydrive team a few weeks ago.
• The new Windows Live Wave 2 UI
• The ability to embed files in a blog post or web page, allowing users to download them from your Skydrive.

Whether it is an improvement or not I can't say because I have previously been unable to access it (not being in the US).

This is bizarre. If I go to the SkyDrive site, I get a completely localised (Dutch) page touting the advantages of Live SkyDrive (in other words, it's not a generic 'Live Beta Page' translation). But when I click 'Start Sharing,' I get the message that it's not available for my region.

Good job guys. Not allowing a certain location access because the product isn't localised is wacky enough, but localising a product for a location you're not supporting is even more incredible.

What kind of encryption does SkyDrive use?  All I can see is that it is password protected by Live ID and SSL.

I agree with blowdart, it really needs to be accessible from My Computer/Network Places.

LiveSide have given SkyDrive a more in depth posting: Here

Bas wrote:



This is bizarre. If I go to the SkyDrive site, I get a completely localised (Dutch) page touting the advantages of Live SkyDrive (in other words, it's not a generic 'Live Beta Page' translation). But when I click 'Start Sharing,' I get the message that it's not available for my region.

Good job guys. Not allowing a certain location access because the product isn't localised is wacky enough, but localising a product for a location you're not supporting is even more incredible.

I just found this on their blog, it appears the only new countries are the UK and India (doesn't explain why you got a Dutch page though):

Windows Live Folders Team Blog wrote:

Third, we’re excited to introduce SkyDrive in two additional regions: UK and India.

Just playing with it now. I like it as to use it as a backup media.

I agree it would be cool to be able to access from within Computer, and also select as a backup location via windows backup in vista, that would be cool.

I would like to see at least 1GB free storage and I would be happy to pay per gig after that, I would say £2.50, per extra GB would be OK.

Nice idea. A question though, is there an expiration date on the SkyDrive, say if I don't use it for a year or two, or don't use my Live ID in two years, will all my files be lost then?

blowdart wrote:

I want it as a drive on "My Computer" or Network Places; in the same way I have a "My Web Sites on MSN" in my current network places (not that I have any)

What does that My web sites  thing actualy do?

Anyway, it would make sense for them to use/integrate it with their webfolder technology so it could be accesed like this:


(Not that they actually ever work for me from there, I always have to access them via IE, but that's probably because RM have modified it so it has to be accessed from their portal, from IE).

The "old" Windows Live UI design was much better. Now it just looks like the horrible Windows XP Royal Theme. And i hate it because of the overdone reflections. Please use the older color scheme, it looks so fresh!

My question is whether or not they're going to offer an SDK for it (using SOAP, simple XML requests, WebDAV, whatever) so that files can be managed programmatically. Basically similar to what Box.Net offers to developers.