Windows Live SkyDrive announced several updates to SkyDrive today.

Now you can:

• Add captions to your files and photos to describe each item.
• Add comments to any file. Leave a note telling people what's new in a file, or comment on a friend's photo. Check out the recent comments others have made about your files.
• Get larger photo previews so you can see which ones to open.
• Flip through the contents of a folder without opening the files.

Also, SkyDrive is now available in 24 more countries or regions:

Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela, Serbia, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

You can read more about this and other updates on the SkyDrive team blog.

The Windows Live Writer team just published five new videos that take you step-by-step through setting up a blog and using Windows Live Writer to publish great-looking blog entries with pictures, maps, videos, and other rich content.

Check out the Writer Zone blog for more info, and download Windows Live Writer for free! The videos are also available on MSN Soapbox and on YouTube.

When you first install the Windows Live Toolbar, some of its best features might not be obvious at first glance. The Toolbar team wanted to allow users to decide for themselves how to personalize their toolbars, so before you can use many features you need to turn them on or install them from Options:

One of my favorite hidden features of the toolbar comes pre-installed, but it still isn’t obvious because it doesn’t appear on the toolbar itself: Smart Menus.

Smart Menus help you quickly get more information about specific kinds of text that you come across while browsing the web in Internet Explorer. When you select the text, the Smart Menu button appears:

Try out these Smart Menu tricks.

• Select an address on a website.
  
  • To map the address or get driving directions, click the Map button:
    
  • To get the current weather conditions and a three-day forecast for that location, click the Weather button:
    
• Select a stock symbol.
  
  • To get a stock quote, click the Stock button:
    
• Select any word or phrase.
  
  • To get more information about that word or phrase, such as its definition, click the Info button:
    

If you haven't yet, install the toolbar, try it out, and let us know what you think about Smart Menus!

- Kaarin Shumate
Windows Live Team

As we mentioned a couple weeks ago, the i’m Initiative has really taken off with people, and Messenger customers have now helped raise over $1.4 million as of today for social causes. But that’s not today’s only big news…

Today we announced that we’re expanding the program to include Hotmail too! Now you can use both Hotmail and Messenger to help contribute to the social cause of your choice.  

The Hotmail team just posted more information about it all on their blog. We’re really excited about this news and, judging from the amazing participation we’ve already seen from many of you, we hope you’re excited too.