Outlook.com Plugins

Those of us who have been on the internet long enough would remember the 1990’s when free internet email accounts from providers such as AOL, Mail.com, RocketMail (acquired by Yahoo) and of course Hotmail (acquired by Hotmail) were all the rage. There were others such as from Excite and Lycos but I didn’t really think those were that commonly used, at least not here in Singapore.

I registered a Hotmail account way back in 1990’s when I think the mailbox limit is 4MB. It has since been rebranded by Microsoft countless times, MSN, Windows Live Mail, Live and now Outlook.com.

Despite the confusion each rebranding has caused, I still love Outlook.com and use it as my personal email address. The latest iteration is intuitive, modern (I love the ‘Flat’ interface), and minimalist (it’s ooh so clean).

Another very cool feature is the tight integration with the other Microsoft properties and products such as OneDrive (previously Skydive), Skype (they used to have Windows Messenger too but they then killed it) and my favourite – the web-based Office suite of productivity tools.

Last week, they announced that soon there will be 3rd-party Outlook.com add-ins via APIs. This is interesting for a number of reasons:

1) Typically add-ins are client-based (think Chrome, Firefox plugins). This is on the cloud.
2) Add-ins by Microsoft have typically gotten a bit messy, probably due to their huge size and developer base. Just recall Internet Explorer (if you’re old enough) and you can imagine how the once-dominant browser is now passé due to the bloat. There is even a Microsoft project to kill it! Read on Project Spartan here
3) Add-ins/Plug-ins typically slow down the service and lead to a bloated piece of software over time if not managed well.

I hope Microsoft manages the the 3rd party add-ins a lot better this time round because I have grown to love Outlook.com and would hate to change my de-facto mail service anytime soon.

Read more from TechCrunch here

SkyDrive changes to OneDrive with pleasant surprises

A couple of months back SkyDrive was renamed to OneDrive following a UK court ruling. As part of that rebranding exercise Microsoft gave out 10 Petabytes (10,000 Terabytes) to users in an online contest.

Unfortunately I was not one of the 100,000 users to receive 100GB of extra space. However Microsoft was nice enough to send me a 20GB consolation by way of an ‘Enthusiast Bonus’.

Coupled with my paid 20GB top-up and a free 3GB given by OneDrive as part of their Camera Roll bonus I have a nice 68GB quota in my OneDrive account.

If you have not used the Camera Roll upload feature of the OneDrive iOS App (also available on the Android version), you should try it. Every couple of days I turn on the OneDrive App and it automatically uploads all newly captured photos to my OneDrive account, ensuring that I never lose my photos if I ever misplace my phone (pray never..).

In addition to being an insurance policy for your special moments, it is also a great way to view your photos on your laptop without actually having to manually sync your photos to your laptop.

 

How to get 50GB of cloud space for your mobile device

If you haven’t heard already, Box.net has upped the ante against rival cloud storage providers dropbox by offering users a whopping 50GB of cloud storage!

All you have to do is download the box.net app from the iTunes App Store or Google Play and signup for the box.net service through the mobile app. And you’re done!

I love Dropbox.com and have been using it for the past few years, however between ~5GB (Dropbox gives 2GB free as a start, but you can earn free space by referring friends) and Box’s 50GB, the choice is clear!

More info here