Saturday, August 4, 2012

The Digital Landscape

I have been working with the new Microsoft releases lately, trying to decipher what I like and what I don't. Skydrive is awesome, what's not to like about 25 GB of free cloud storage? Unfortunately, there's lots more where that came from.

The most widely known of Microsoft's new exploits is Windows 8, which I have been working with, more on that another time. But in the process of looking into the way Windows 8 has been rearranged, it is very clear that Microsoft is trying hard to integrate cloud use with computer and phone use and wrap it all up in a nice little four colored ball with a Windows logo on it. Skydrive has always been accessible over the web, but Microsoft only made an access app for iPhone/iPad, and for Windows phones, and left out the Android world, Well, there's always more than one answer to a puzzle, and a third party developer produced a Skydrive Browser for Android, making those documents available pretty much anywhere with just a couple clicks.

Now Microsoft wants to provide that same experience. They have hit the phone market, light years behind Apple iOS and Google's Android.  Microsoft's desire to catch up has led them to come up with another way to streamline and integrate our online needs with our computing experience, and has now integrated Hotmail/Live username as the logon for Windows 8. Then there are "tiles" giving direct access to various areas of online existence, among those Skydrive and Mail. While they are squaring away the last mods on Windows 8, they are working on launching yet another revamp of Hotmail/Live Mail/MSN that is now called Outlook.com which is up for preview right now. The interface is very streamlined, much similar to Windows 8 look and feel. Labels and folders help the organization process, and there is even an automated cleanup option.

That is, if you can ever get into it. I signed up for a preview, and got into the account after typing in three different captchas, then changed some settings, logged out and went about other items. Went back, and after numerous captchas, a text message verification, and an email verification, it still apologized for having me prove I was human. Two more captchas and I got back in, feeling quite relieved that I didn't have anything pressing in that account. Revolutionary, whether we need it or not.