The title pretty much says it all. Microsoft’s Skydrive service has entered beta. It’s free and you get 500 megs of space for uploading files. You can set folders to private, public, or shared (as best I can figure, public folders anyone can read, but not change, and shared folders can be read and changed by a selection of friends).

I’m not often one to beat the Microsoft drum, but it seems like a handy way to keep a small number of files backed up remotely, or to collaborate/share with friends. To be sure there are other similar services* out there, but for me this is an alternative to gmailing files to myself. I already had a “Live” account, so it was just a matter of clicking a button to sign up. 🙂

* Here are a few that offer free plans:
http://www.box.net
http://www.snapdrive.net/
http://www.xdrive.com/
http://www.mediamax.com/
http://www.omnidrive.com/
Caveat Emptor: I have no experience with any of these. I wouldn’t store anything very private in any of these without doing some research first!