Skydrive and Google Drive are ways to store information on the internet. Skydrive is by Microsoft, and Google Drive is by Google. Both have a basic package for free use and charge if you want additional space. This is also called “putting your information on the cloud.” The internet is considered “the cloud.”

Basically, when you store your information on the cloud, you know it is stored somewhere, but do not know where.

Microsoft's Skydrive lets you store up to seven gigabytes (GB) of information free that can be visible to just you, others you select or the public. You can access what you put out there on any computer connected to the internet using your logon. You can put all types of files there. If you have large files to share, this is one way to do it. Also, with Skydrive are versions of Microsoft applications called Office Web Applications, or OWA.

If you signed up with Skydrive in the past, you need to go back in your account and take advantage of a free offer. You use Windows Live ID to log-in, so you probably are still using the log-in elsewhere, but it does have a password reminder. It uses your email address as the user name. When you go into Skydrive, you will see on the bottom left where it shows that you have seven GBs of storage. If you click on that, you will go to a page with upgrade options. You can buy additional space here.

Now, for the nice freebie. For a limited time (they do not say how long) there is a free upgrade for existing Skydrive users to upgrade to 25 GBs free.

Google has also introduced its cloud storage, which only gives five GBs of storage and works with Google Docs (the Google office suite). It is called Google Drive. If you store items in their format, they do not count it as part of your five GBs. It works similar to Skydrive.

Skydive and Google Drive are two additional options to backup some of your stuff and also be able to access it anywhere.

Send your questions to Dwight Watt at dwight@dwightwatt.com. He teaches at a technical college in northwest Georgia and does consulting work for businesses and individuals. His website is www.dwightwatt.com.