In a former life, Carissa Rogers was a molecular biologist. In her current life, she is the chief researcher of bloggy karma, parenting dos (and some don’ts), new recipes, and for spice she pretends to be a photographer. She has been blogging since February of 2008, and when she isn’t carpooling, volunteering and lots of other –ings, she writes freelance and publishes her good & crazy thoughts on GoodNCrazy.com. Also find her on Twitter and Facebook.
Why SkyDrive Takes The Crazy Out Of Shared Files!
It’s no secret that I don’t love Little League. Spring is cold in my Southern Oregon part of the world and freezing temps combined with rain (and sometimes snow) are no fun for a fair weather mom.
As a blogger, I recently wrote about my ‘un-American’ dislike of Little League—and the fact that my kids seem to love it more than life! Of course, I needed a fab photo of my kids in their team uniforms…
However I managed to forget to bring my big girl camera and alas, all I had was my cell phone. I couldn’t get the photo I wanted and a friend who had a nice camera took several shots of my kids for me.
My next issue was trying to figure out how to get the photos from the friend? I needed high resolution images and I didn’t want him to burn a DVD for me to have to pick up at his house. I just wanted the images!
SkyDrive to the rescue!
He emailed me a link to a private SkyDrive folder of my kid’s uploaded faces and voilà there they were… waiting in ‘the cloud’ for me to download—high resolution and everything!
Simple image sharing is one of my favorite SkyDrive perks… not to mention 7 GB of free storage. Holy tons of photos Batman!
SkyDrive Is Brilliant For Online Group Document Projects
SkyDrive saves me time (and sanity)! I often need to upload a group project document for several people to see and edit, at the same time. Before I was using a shared online system but I had to download, alter, re-save with a new name, then upload the new doc, and wait for my colleagues to see and edit.
(Lather. Rinse. Repeat.)
It was driving me insane! Oh. My. Gosh. SkyDrive plays nice with Microsoft Office products. You can edit even tricky documents like giant spreadsheets in real time and directly in the browser web-app (at the same time as your client across the country in Virginia!) When several people are editing a Microsoft Word doc, it knows there are new versions and you can easily open an older version if you need to compare changes.
Even Grandparents Can Figure This Out
This past weekend we had a big family gathering for my little boy’s birthday. He’s 8. He’s great! And after the family cleared out, I quickly edited the images in Windows Live Photo Gallery. (Tangent: I had NO idea Photo Gallery could do a ‘photo fuse’ and swap heads out of group photos to make a perfect group shot. And so easily too! HALLELUJAH!)
With a one-click upload to SkyDrive, I shared the birthday party folder (above) via email with the grandparents. They don’t have to log in and they don’t have to click a link – the images are loaded directly in the window of their email. (Dude, the viewer works amazingly well from a cell phone too!) I love being able to share grandkid pictures this way – so smooth and so easy for everyone. At right is how the emailed folder appears magically in your email!
I’ll be sharing a ton of photos with friends and family this year!
How do you share photos with family and friends?