SkyDrive is a new service by Microsoft that lets you upload and host files for your own use. It is available in India, UK and the US market only as of now. So if you are in these regions you can use it for hosting your banner, music and videos to play on spaces or any other website that you might have. It gives you a total space of 1GB and you can even access the public folders of your friends.

• Go to SkyDrive and sign in with your windows live account.
• You will notice a panel with various options. Click on the Public folder icon.

• You will notice various options through which you can create new folders, etc. For now, click on Add files.

• Browse through you computer and upload the file you want. In my case I am going to upload a music file titled 'Stronger'.
• After uploading go to where you file is uploaded in the public folder. You will see various options through which you can embed the file into your blog so people can download it or an option to send the file via email and so on. We don't require this as you cannot display your banner or play your music or videos through the direct link given or the embed option. To play music or videos on your space through the media player you need a hotlink which means a direct link to the actual file in question.

To get the hotlink...

• Right click the file icon (Picture, music, video or any other file format)
• From the drop down menu, select Copy Shortcut (if you are using IE or select Copy link location if you are using Firefox browser)
• When you paste this link anywhere (ctrl+v) or right click, paste) you will notice it is quite long and it has a ?download at the end of it. Delete that bit.

For example...

I got :

http://tswp6g.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pFfZGkZNh4Xg73_YUvx5n1SYJw4N1TMIZvOZYBLaJ5hd_7jeqWsld_h

cnRFWYeFdKhKWptaGpd52fyHC9YKMxyUwAh_Z1k5PQ/stronger.wma?download

After removing ?download I am left with...

http://tswp6g.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pFfZGkZNh4Xg73_YUvx5n1SYJw4N1TMIZvOZYBLaJ5hd_7jeqWsld_h

cnRFWYeFdKhKWptaGpd52fyHC9YKMxyUwAh_Z1k5PQ/stronger.wma

This is the hotlink that we require and it can be used in the media player. Just make sure your file is in an acceptable format (like .wmv, .mp3, .avi, etc). You can even shorten the URL using tinyurl if you want but it is not necessary.

• Now add the Windows Media Player to your Space
• Position it where ever you want. You can even choose to make the media player invisible so that music will be played but there will be no media player module showing up on your space in the preview mode.
• Click on the Edit link found on the media player module.
• The page will refresh and you will be asked for a link/URL.
• Paste the hotlink that we modified and saved earlier.
• Click on the Save button after you have done it and preview your space.

You will hear your music or see your video play...

Done!

Easy right?