What can I say about SkyDrive that has not already been touched on?

Well first off this is really a great service that is free. Their is a lot of competition in this sector of “Cloud Storage” but the majority of them are clunky and are not that easy to use for the everyday user. The best site I have found for online storage is BOX.net. But that is not the greatest either. You have to pay quite a bit for monthly and yearly service, and you really don’t get that much storage for what you pay.

So I do have a couple qualms about this it so far. I do understand it is still obviously under beta. But I thought I would criticize it anyway, not to be a jerk, but just some suggestions on which directions they should head for.

1. MORE STORAGE!

2. Ability to map your SkyDrive as a mapped drive.

3. Allow users to connect via ODBC. (or just me:))

4. KEEP IT FREE!!!

I obviously don’t think this service will continue to be free. If they do intend to keep a portion of it free I hope they at least give the user 1GB of free space. I am already starting to use the SkyDrive around the office, loading smaller utilities and other work oriented documents on it. So far so good, no hang ups at all.

Once I read Brandon Leblanc’s post over at the Windows Vista Team Blog about the new change over from the “Live Spaces” name to “SkyDrive” it got me really excited. As I was reading through his post it got my little brain running with ideas on what I could use SkyDrive for. To me “Cloud Storage” is the future. So many small businesses’ use similar services already because of the easy and worry free way to backup all data. But at the same time these services can get very expensive. Hopefully MS notices this, and they act on it. It’s so hard for the small business owner or even home user to find out what company and service is reliable and trustworthy when it comes to virtual storage. Everyone knows MS and the MS brand. I think if they were able to work themselves slowly into this market of small business it could really spark a lot more interest with SkyDrive. But I think as of now they are more directed at the everyday user rather then small business and mid grade enterprise, which is fine for now.

I see a lot of potential with SkyDrive, a lot. Hopefully Microsoft pays attention to the all of the customer reviews and criticisms of the service and changes them to suit their user base.

The two most important features I would like to see are more storage and a way to connect via ODBC connection. Other then that I probably would not mind paying a small monthly fee of lets say $8.00- $15.00 for 7-15GB of storage, as long as I was able to map the drive and connect via ODBC. Obviously not everyone is as picky as I am. This program has a wonderful future, and I hope this is not a project that gets left on the back burner of Live Labs.

A little over a year ago I was wishing I could get a invite to TED. Obviously that did not happen. But I did not cry, mainly because they now stream mostly all of the keynotes, and they offer a full commentary. So it is no longer a secret from the public. If you don’t know what TED is then just click here. You are in for a treat!

The main reason I wanted to go to TED is because I knew Blaise Aguera y Arcas was speaking. He is a Microsoft Live Labs Architect. He was there to speak about his two babies SeaDragon and Photosynth. Which in words I just cannot explain.

Video: Take the Photosynth Tour

Well the people at Microsoft’s Live Labs have been working away at content to make the experience even more enjoyable, and when I say an experience I mean it. This software blows my mind. So

Microsoft and NASA have teamed to create a 3d image of everything NASA, including the next launch shuttle Endeavor. You’ll need to download the Photosynth viewer to see the images (sorry Mac users, for now Photosynth is only available for Windows XP and Vista — running either IE6 or IE7).

NASA says it hopes this joint project will lead to more collaborative initiatives with Microsoft. And Microsoft is no doubt hoping the same, especially since most recent NASA collaborations have been with rival Google, which gets some of its Google Earth data from NASA.

Video: Photosynth meets NASA

Also worth noting is that, near the end of the promotional video pictured above, Blaise Aguera y Arcas says that Photosynth with soon offer features which allow users to stitch their own photos together.Given that Photosynth relies on image data from a normal SLR camera, it might soon be possible for even you and I to stitch together some impressive 3-D tours, provided you take enough images.