Modern day home computing is not as it once was. Not-so long ago it used to be that in order to bring the most potential out of your computer box you had to use proprietary software.
Any app that runs solely on a specific operating system is proprietary. And yes there’s still lots of this stuff out there.
For the past few years I have been slowly transitioning the stuff I do on the web to being as cloud-based as possible. You’ve heard the term "cloud computing" so much that it probably makes you sick to hear it at this point – but you have to do it if you expect to make smooth transitions in the future from computer to computer.
If you don’t start transitioning now it will be very painful and stressful to get it done later.
A plain English description
"OS-less" means to be able to do what you do on a computer without the need for any specific operating system.
Using myself as an example, here’s a few things I do:
For my photos I made the decision to push those all to Flickr. It’s web-based. I can access it on any computer using any OS.
For my e-mail I decided to switch over to Hotmail (or to be more specific, Windows Live Admin Center). Previous to that I used self-hosted IMAP and before that plain ol’ POP. I can get to my mail from anywhere on any computer using any OS in any web browser – and it’s all there. It’s backed up and readily accessible.
For important documents that I need to hang on to (and even the not-so important ones), I push those over to Google Docs. This acts as my backup that is just as accessible as my mail is. Once again it’s accessible on any computer/OS.
Are you still in the stone age?
If you’re still using apps that are OS-proprietary and local to your computer only, you run the risk of losing all the data you have without warning. Let’s say for the moment you’re really good at backing things up routinely. What if your hard drive fails and the backup doesn’t work? What then? You basically curse and swear, then realize you lost it all and start from zero.
Nobody wants that to happen.
And what happens when you buy a new computer? Do you really want to go thru the process of reinstalling all your apps all over again, configuring them and wasting hours of time when all you want to do is just get going?
Of course you don’t.
Is it possible to go completely OS-less?
Not at present. However you can move over a significant chunk of what you do to cloud territory now. The more you move out there, the better.
Get your docs, photos and e-mail out in the cloud
No matter how much of an old fuddy-duddy you are (as in the type who positively refuses to try anything different), bear in mind the transition is stupidly easy to do for docs, photos and mail.
Docs
Google Docs is still your best bet. Get an account and upload them. Don’t worry, they’re all private uploads unless you specifically enable a share-out option (which is off by default).
Photos
If you use Flickr, get Windows Live Photo Gallery (Windows), Flickr Desktop Organizer (Linux) or Flickr Uploadr (Windows, Mac). Get a Flickr account and start uploading.
If you use Picasa, the Picasa client is well known to be super-awesome and super-easy to use. Works in Windows, Mac or Linux. Uploads stuff easily. It’s a no-brainer.
This is the one people fear the most – especially those who use POP and are under the impression it would be absolutely impossible to move hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of mails to another account.
Your two best bets are Gmail and Hotmail – and yes you can move all your mail over to either.
The short version of how to do it:
All modern e-mail clients support multiple e-mail accounts.
With Gmail, you can set up the new account alongside the old POP account in Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail or any number of other clients that support IMAP.
With Hotmail, you use the Windows Live Mail client. It will easily import all your old mail from Outlook or Outlook Express. Then you set up your Hotmail account alongside your POP account.
No matter which method you choose, once you have the multiple accounts set up you just drag and drop the mail from the old to the new. All the timestamps are saved and nothing is lost. Everything is moved over including the sent mail, attachments and so on. Furthermore the mail is instantly accessible on the web as well as in the client at that point via hotmail.com or gmail.com depending on which you chose.
Once done you no longer have to rely on your computer to send, retrieve and store your mail. All of it is in the cloud, backed up and accessible at any time. You can also still use the mail client if you feel like it. You can get to your mail either way when you push it to the cloud.
The long version of how to do it:
I go into grotesque detail on how to do this and it would take way too long to explain here – so watch for another article on it soon!
I am telling you now – start transitioning to the cloud
Said honestly, don’t put this off. You’ve got your docs, you’ve got your mail and if you take photos, those are most likely local to your computer box as well. Push this stuff out to the cloud (that being the internet).
You can continue (obviously) to perform local backups, but when (not if) the time comes that you get a new computer, the painful process of moving everything over will be so much less painful when you realize you can just open up a browser and get to everything – instantly.
Yes it’s true that there will be things you simply can’t push to the cloud (yet), but for the stuff you can get out there – do it.
Do it if for no other reason to have a secondary or tertiary free backup. The price is nice and all it costs is a small amount of your time.
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