ClintonFitch.com

When it comes to photo editing apps for Windows 8.1, they come a dime-a-dozen (kind of like weather apps).  This means in order to raise above the fray that the app has to be exceptional and feature rich.  You get that with the recently released Autodesk Pixlr app for Windows 8.1.  The Modern app gives you a host of editing functionality from the start with powerful auto correcting features to enhance your photos.  The real power of the app comes when you sign up for a free Pixlr account.  Then you can download literally hundreds of filters, frames, stickers and other effects to add to your photos.  Autodesk Pixlr is easy to use and works comfortably on touch enabled tablets as well as mouse or touchpad driven laptops and PCs.  It has become my go-to photo editing app on both my Windows PC and my Toshiba Encore 2 tablet and for the price of exactly zero dollars, it is hard to beat the value.

Autodesk Pixlr for Windows 8.1 – Free – Download Now

Microsoft today sent an email to all Outlook.com customers that Facebook Messenger and Google Chat integration with the web-based email service is no longer available.  The email outlines that in the next couple of weeks that users will no longer be able to have instant message sessions from Outlook.com to these other services.  While no specifics are given on why Facebook Messenger integration is going away, Microsoft was quite clear that the reason Google Chat integration is going away is due to a decision by Google to discontinue the chat protocol.

Today’s announcement from the OneDrive team of the new OneDrive API is great news.  For those of you who aren’t developers, the new OneDrive API will allow developers to allow full functionality of OneDrive in their apps.  It also provides better speed and includes the ability to retrieve new changes to files and folders to keep a large set of files efficiently in sync.  It allows rsumable uploads of files up to 10GB via file-fragment uploading for things like videos and it allows for a customizable file thumbnail images to be delivered between the developers app and OneDrive.  For consumers, the new OneDrive API may not sound super sexy but it will bring a new level of OneDrive integration into apps regardless of the platform of that app – iOS, Android, Windows or Windows Phone.  What it means is you can expect more apps on your favorite devices to be integrated with OneDrive.

The more exciting news and one that I suspect many people – including developers – missed is one line that is in the blog post about the new OneDrive API.

Internally, we are beginning to use the new API in all of our apps. This ensures that everyone is building on the platform with the same set of tools. Whenever we have access to new functionality, so will you.

For the developer community this is huge for one reason if for no other.  It means that Microsoft will not change the OneDrive API just for themselves.  It will be for everyone including them internally.  That in effect future proofs their apps and makes OneDrive as a platform far more viable.  This is big news peeps.

Microsoft has announced that students around the world can access Office 365 free-of-charge through their school.  The news is an exciting development that will open up the online version of Office as well as an installed version of Office to students globally.  Until today this was only available to students and educators in the United States.

To find out if you are eligible, you need a valid school address and have access to that email to get the verification information.  For students, go to this link to see if you qualify.  For Teachers, you go to this link.  Once you have been verified, you can get the latest version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access and Publisher and can install it on up to five PCs or Macs and up to 5 mobile devices.  In addition, you get 1TB of OneDrive storage so you can share all your files across your devices and of course access to the online versions of Office.

It is an amazing deal and great to see how Microsoft is supporting educators and students by providing this powerful suite of applications free.  It also should squelch some undertones in the market that Microsoft is not really interested in the Education market, having all-but given up on it thanks to the heavy push from Apple.  Clearly that is not the case.  By giving educators and students access to a full Office 365 account should remove any doubt.

For more information on this program, check out the Office Blogs.