Some Great Free Stuff From Microsoft

Wow I bet that title shocked folks. Yep Microsoft do some great stuff, and it is free as well!

Windows Live Writer (WLW) – I had to start with this it for me is the best bit of blogging software out there at the moment. So good in fact that on my Macbook I have VMWare Fusion running an XP virtual machine so I can use WLW on my Macbook. It really is worth the effort. There are also some nice free plugins that can be installed that expand it’s functionality.

Windows Live Photos (WLP) – You can install this at the same time as you install WLW, which I do recommend. There is one feature here that I find very useful indeed, and that is the ability to stitch photos together to make a panorama (details here). You can see the results I got from a panorama I did with it here.

Live Mesh – 5GB of online storage for your files. Runs on Windows (naturally), Macs (although there is a Snow Leopard incompatibility at the moment), the web and other mobile devices (no iPhone client yet). So 5GB of synced stored files, and the ability to access the desk top of the computer as well. So when you are away from your desk or office your able to get easy access to them and the apps that access them.

Office Live – Want another 5GB of storage just for your office documents? Want to collaborate on them as well? Then this great M$ freebie is just for you.

Sky Drive – 25GB of online storage! Yep a massive 25GB of free online storage. ‘nuff said really.

Of course with the above there may be file size restrictions. But if you are using these to back up photos, documents and the odd mp3, then this shouldn’t be a problem.

So using three free Microsoft services I make that 35GB of free online storage. Not bad if you ask me. Plus don’t forget when Office 10 comes out there will be a free online version of that to include in this list. It won’t be the full version naturally, but hopefully be more functional than Google Docs. I think that Google Docs will have some pretty stiff competition.