It is just a simple download and a quick install. This works for Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Here is the download site:

Download SkyDrive for Windows

Click the above link, you will next see the download banner. Click Run. Sign in to your Microsoft Account and follow the dialogs.

In about a minute there will be a SkyDrive listing in Windows Explorer, in the Favorites section as shown in the illustration above.

Presently that entry cannot be expanded like other folders, however it works the same in the main pane.

It takes a bit to synchronize Windows Explorer with your SkyDrive – there is still the Internet download and upload delay – but shortly SkyDrive will work like any other folder.

And, yes, you can now drag and drop folders, including contents and sub-folders, right into SkyDrive.

Do keep in mind that your Internet connect speed will affect how quickly this takes place.

This is a much needed improvement and will make SkyDrive a much more useful feature.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

Here are samples of such spots. These five photos (these are enlarged sections) show the same sky and tree at right. They were taken at different aperture settings, as indicated.

You can see that for large apertures (small f/number) the spots are larger and lighter. In the photos at even larger apertures the spots were not noticeable.

This explains the mystery of sometimes getting spots and not at other times – the aperture will, of course, be different for different photos. So sometimes, with a small aperture (large (f/number), the spots are there, and they are not visible in photos taken at large apertures.

These spots are made by very tiny dust flecks on the rear of the lens. Indeed, this dust was almost invisible to the naked eye. When the lens is stopped down the light bundle forming the image at any one spot is very small and even the tiniest dust particle can cast an appreciable shadow onto the sensor.

It is very easy to miss cleaning the rear of a lens. It is not exposed to the elements except when changing lenses, so you might not think about it. Normally we keep the rear caps on, so there are but a few seconds when dust can get on the rear of the lens. Unfortunately, that is time enough. So be sure to not only keep the front lens surface clean, but the rear of of lens as well.

(Oh, yes, I intentionally got dust on the rear element of a lens to take these photos – the things one has to do to investigate readers’ mysteries!)

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

The method provided on SkyDrive shares a link to the photo and its album on SkyDrive, the photo is not actually copied to Facebook. Here is an illustration of how it appears on Facebook. When a viewer clicks on the photo thumbnail or the title she will get something like this:

The viewer is taken to the photo in your SkyDrive album. The other photos in the album will also be available if the album is public.

The procedure for sharing a SkyDrive photo on Facebook

On your SkyDrive go to the photo you wish to share. Click Sharing in the info panel on the right. Click Share in the expanded list.  The share dialog comes up. Click the Facebook icon, see the illustration here.

If you have not shared on Facebook before, click add service, then click on Facebook in the new menu. You will be taken through a number of dialogs to complete the connection to Facebook. Once that is complete, you can share to Facebook from the initial sharing dialog. When you click the Facebook icon in the Post to area, a checkbox with the Facebook icon is displayed. Click the checkbox. You can fill in the text of the message that is to appear with your Facebook post.

Then just click Post and SkyDrive send a post to your Facebook page.

You saw above how that looks and learned what happens when a viewer click on the post.

If you wish for the photo to be copied to your Facebook Photos section, then you need to upload the photo from your computer. That can be done easily from Windows Live Photo Gallery.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

Run the pointer into the upper-right or lower-right corner. The “charms” will show up.

• Move the pointer to the Settings charm and click on it.
• In the Settings panel click on Power.
• Finally click on Shut down.

With just keyboard strokes the procedure is this:

• Hold down the Windows logo key and press I (the letter i) – this brings up the Settings panel.
• Press the up arrow key. This selects Power (shown here).
• Press the Enter key to bring up the Power options.
• Press U – note the “u” in Shut down is underlined.

In notation form the steps are:

• logo+I – up arrow – Enter – u       +  –    –    – 

Now for a quicker way: using a shutdown desktop shortcut. This tip comes from Ed Bott at ZDNet (The Metro hater’s guide to customizing Windows 8 Consumer Preview).

Make a Windows 8 Consumer Preview desktop shutdown shortcut.

• Press the logo key to bring up the Start screen. Click on the Desktop tile to go to the desktop.
• Right-click in an empty area.
• In the menu move the pointer down to New and then to the right to to open a submenu.
• Click on Shortcut.
• In the Create shortcut dialog type this text: shutdown /p   Note that there is a space after the word “shutdown”.
• Click Next.

The next dialog allows you to give the shortcut a name. You can accept the presented “shutdown.exe” – I prefer to shorten it to just “shutdown”.

• Click Finish.

You now have a shutdown shortcut. The icon may not be exactly what you would associate with “shutdown”.

• So right-click the icon and select Properties.
• Click Change icon… on the Shortcut tab (it opened by default).
• Click OK on the warning dialog to let you choose an icon from the built-in collection.

The new dialog presents a large number of icons. Choose the one you like. You can see in the illustration that I chose the red power icon.

• Click on the chosen icon.
• Click OK and again click OK to close both dialog windows.

You now have a good looking shutdown shortcut on your desktop. Position it as you prefer.

Now you can quickly shut down the computer from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview desktop. Just double-click the shutdown shortcut and the computer shuts down.

A little bit of background information

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview retains the “Command prompt” program. You can find it on the All apps screen (right-click an empty spot on the Start screen).

This program, us old-timers lovingly call it the “DOS box”, allows you to invoke a large number of computer commands. Just open the app and type help and press Enter. You will se a large number of available commands. One of the commands is “shutdown”. If you type “shutdown” – don’t worry, it won’t execute, it requires a “parameter” – it will show the available parameters or instructions to obtain desired functions. One ot the parameters is “/p” which tells the shutdown program to initiate a “planned” shutdown sequence.

The create shortcut program permit a line of basic computer commands for the shortcut to execute.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

Detailed installation instructions are given in the post Windows 8 on VMware Player on my This ‘n That blog.

Also see my post Windows 8 Consumer Preview – First Impressions for additional thoughts.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

You can get a bit more information on this when you move the pointer to the button.

This is not an alarm, but do heed the advice and shut down or restart the computer when you take a break. Pat yourself on the back for having set up your machine to perform updates automatically.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

If no group name is specified, a sub-folder is created with the date when the photos were taken as the name followed by a number. For most of us, this is just fine. But what do you do if you don’t want sub-folders, but all the photos imported into one folder? Can that be done?

The process described above is for the default setting in Windows Live Photo Gallery. You can change the way photos are imported in the Live Photo Gallery Options menu.

Click the blue File tab, then Options. Click the Import tab in the options dialog.

Click on the Folder name: selection, it is probably “Name”. The last item in the drop-down menu is (None). Click on this, then click OK.

When folder name “(None)” is selected, no sub-folders will be made and all photos will be imported into the folder specified in “Import to:”. Note the Browse button which allows you to specify any folder on your system for storing your imported photos.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

SkyDrive in the root location, the first one you come to when you click SkyDrive in the top bar, can contain documents and folders. Folders in the root location have a Folder type parameter. Sub-folders, folders inside other folders, do not have a Folder type. You can see the Folder type in the information pane under Information.

In the root location the Folder type may be fixed for some folders (legacy Documents, Favorites). Other folders, and all newly added ones, can be of Folder type Documents or Photos and the Folder type can be changed.

When you click Documents in the left pane, only folders of Folder type Documents (and Favorites, if you have any of those) will be shown in the main area.

When you click Photos, only folders of Folder type Photos will be shown in the main area. These are the albums.

There is one other distinction: Only albums, i.e. folders of Folder type Photos, will show in Windows Live Photo Gallery in the upload dialog. So you can only upload photos to “albums”.

You can change the Folder type of folders in the root location. In the information pane, under Information, you can see the Folder type. There is a Change link.

Click on Change and a new page allows you to change the Folder type.

The two options are:

• ● Documents – Store documents, spreadsheets, and other files
• ● Photos – Store photos to show on your Photos page

To summarize: Albums are folders of folder type Photos. They are located in the root of your SkyDrive. They will be shown in the main display area when you click Photos. These albums will also be shown as album options when uploading from Live Photo Gallery.

Other folders and subfolders may contain photos – by moving individual photos or folders into them. When a folder, or subfolder, contains a photo, the folder icon will show that photo. When a folder contains more than one photo, the folder will play a continuous little slide show of the photos inside on the folder icon. You can see this by clicking the folder illustration here.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

Many folks have more than one account, a personal one, and maybe a work-related account. Linking them makes switching easy, but does not affect the files or organization of either account. Each account still keeps all its settings and preferences, all the folder and album organization.

Linking the accounts is also straight-forward, here is how to go about it:

Click on your name or move the pointer over the down-pointing arrowhead behind your name (top-right of window). See the illustration. On the drop-down menu click Account.

Sign in to the page with your password. On the Account overview page, toward the bottom, in the Other options sections, click on the Linked IDs link.

The Manage linked IDs page shows what accounts are linked and has an Add linked ID link.

Click it to proceed to the Link a Windows Live ID page.

Once more your password is needed. Type in the credentials for the account you wish to add. Then click Link.

The Manage linked IDs page now shows the linked accounts. Note that there is an Unlink option to the right of each linked account name – you can unlink an account at any time.

How do you switch accounts?

With linked accounts all you need to do is click on your name or move the pointer to the down-pointing arrowhead behind your name.

The drop-down menu will show the linked accounts at the bottom. The active, displayed, account is highlighted. Just click on another account and the switch is made.

Note the other options on the drop-down menu. I like to assign different themes to my different accounts to keep myself reminded of which account I am in.

I also set Keep me signed in on the sign-in page. This way I do not need to sign in each time I want to visit SkyDrive or my mail.

.:.

© 2011 Ludwig Keck

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.