Free online storage: SkyDrive

Why would you want to store your files online? Well, if your hard disk crashes or your laptop is stolen, your files could be lost forever. Plus, it is handy to share pictures, short videos and any other files with friends and family without emailing them. And once your files are online, you can access them from any computer on the 'net. View your pictures from the library, your friend's house or even your mobile device. (You don't have to download a picture to view it.)

The service that does this is called SkyDrive (a "hard drive" in the cloud, I guess).

So, slick as it sounds, what does it cost? Why, it's free, like all good things in life. So what are the limits, you ask. You are limited to 50 Mbytes per file and 25 Gbytes (gigabytes, that's 25,000 Mbytes). Since the average digital picture is somewhere between .5 and 2 Mbytes, that's room for at least 12,000 to 100,000 pictures.

So, who provides this free service and is it reliable? It's from Microsoft, so I think it should be around for quite a while. You begin by creating a Windows Live account. If you have a hotmail account, you're already set. From the Windows Live home page, (after you log in) click More and SkyDrive. I haven't tried this, but I don't see why you couldn't create as many accounts as you want and upload as much stuff as you want. Once it's uploaded, you can organize it and share with other people (or keep it private).

This isn't exactly a poor man's backup service, though. You have to upload each file by selecting it from a list. Nothing is automatic, so if you change your file on your PC, the change is not reflected on SkyDrive unless you upload it again. If you forget to upload, well, you forgot; nothing will cover you. And if you want to restore a file from SkyDrive, it's easy enough but SkyDrive doesn't know where your file came from originally, so you have to put your pictures back in your picture folder and your documents into your document folder, etc.

But these are nit-picky complaints. SkyDrive can be a godsend if you lose files or need to transfer files to or from another computer. Plus, it can help you to avoid storing personal files on your work computer while still giving you access to them any time.