How to enjoy Microsoft Cloud computing services?

What is Microsoft's cloud computing service?

25GB free online storage, free version of Microsoft Office (including OneNote), access to files via mobile devices, and automatic backup of up to 5GB of data on PCs and Macs, how do you feel about all this? Is it too good to be true? If you have a Microsoft Live ID, or if you are willing to create an ID, you can enjoy it now.

Before we go into this, we just want to be kind to remind you that storing sensitive or confidential material in the cloud is risky and could violate legal rules. If the information belongs to an entity other than your company, you should consult with management before using any cloud storage service.

SkyDrive

The key to all these features is Microsoft's SkyDrive service, which provides 25GB of free file storage services. You can see the relationship between SkyDrive and Microsoft's other services and software and mobile devices in the image above. You can use a simple Internet interface to upload and store various types of files onto SkyDrive. Once inside the SkyDrive, you can handle files at will: Move, copy, edit, rename, or download files. SkyDrive also provides access and storage mechanisms for the free Microsoft Office Web Apps service. The Office Web apps includes programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, which can run in major internet browsers, including Firefox and Chrome.

Office Web Apps

Anyone who uses the Ribbon interface of Office 2007 or 2010 will find the Internet versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote look familiar and handy. These Internet versions only provide a small portion of the functionality of the official Desktop edition. However, this small subset of features should be more than sufficient for the vast majority of writing tasks that do not require complex formats. Inserts for styles, tables, and photos are supported. You don't need to install Microsoft Office for Windows or Mac OS X, you can use Office Web Apps in a supported browser. However, if you do have a desktop version, you have this option when you use Internet Explorer in a Windows environment: You can switch the editing environment from an Internet application to a formal desktop version. (Users of other browsers can download files and upload them manually, just a few more steps.) ）

Working with Windows office and the cloud

If you switch from office Web Apps Word in Internet Explorer to another version, such as Microsoft Word 2010, to save an edited Word document, simply click Save. (It is the same command as saving to a local drive.) However, if the file was originally created with the Office Web app, it will be saved for a long time because it first saves the file to SkyDrive.

The Mango of the clouds

If you use a smartphone based on Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), you can use the built-in Office mobile application to access and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents stored in SkyDrive. Photos can be uploaded to SkyDrive automatically via 3G or wireless networks. The video must be uploaded manually.

iphone support

Microsoft offers free stand-alone SkyDrive applications for Windows Phone (left) and iphone. You can edit the document when you use the Windows Phone version of the SkyDrive application. However, the iphone version of the SkyDrive application can only be viewed. The application is not a general-purpose application that can be applied to the larger screen of the ipad, but you can use "twice Times" to zoom in manually for use on the ipad.

Embed a document inside a Web page

The last notable feature of Office Web apps is the ability to share documents by embedding them directly into a Web page. This allows anyone to view Office documents without the need for special SkyDrive Internet links or logins.

Windows Live Mesh

Microsoft's Windows Live mesh also has a relationship with SkyDrive. Windows Live Mesh is a peer-to-peer shared service that allows you to specify a traditional hard disk (or SSD) drive folder to be shared across a cloud environment on a PC or Mac. The interesting part is that folders can also sync between local drives and SkyDrive. Up to 5GB of the SkyDrive 25GB cloud storage limit is available for this Windows Live mesh cloud synchronization-which works like Dropbox. However, it is limited to free native applications and desktop browsers that only use Windows or Mac OS x. Windows Phone and iphone SkyDrive applications cannot view or use the Windows Live Mesh folder synchronized by SkyDrive.

No Windows Share

Unfortunately, one of the big limitations of SkyDrive is the lack of built-in support to access it as a Windows shared area. As you can see from above, Dropbox does support shared areas just like any other service. This feature allows you to access files using standard Windows tools and any Windows applications that can access the shared area. There are third-party methods of cracking that can set SkyDrive to WebDAV shares, but it's not reassuring and not supported by Microsoft. It is indeed surprising that Microsoft services lacks support for shared areas.

Synthesizer

Microsoft SkyDrive, Office Web Apps, Windows Live mesh and native apps for the iphone and Windows Phone editions, this portfolio brings a powerful set of tools to synchronize a wide variety of documents and files. And almost ready to use. It's very affordable--everything is free, so why not try these services?