Q: I have a music collection of thousands of songs on my computer. It’s too big to all fit on my old iPod. What’s the best way for me to take my music with me when I’m in the car or out for a jog?

A: Well, Corey, we’re going to go out on a limb and suggest that what you don’t need is yet another device to transfer thousands of MP3s to. The fact is, the days of having your music collection attached to a single, physical device are over. This brings us to one of our favorite topics: the cloud.

Image credit: Daniel Paxton / Flickr

Remember, “the cloud” is just a fancy way of saying that you are going to store your MP3s in some location out on the Internet, instead of on your computer or mobile device. This can make accessing your music collection from anywhere really simple. There are several companies that offer free ways to do this, including Amazon, Apple and Google.

We’re big fans of Google’s Google Music service because it’s very easy to use. All you have to do is download a program called Google Music Manager onto the computer you have your music collection stored on. Then the program will start going through your entire collection, song by song, and uploading them to Google’s cloud. Depending on how many MP3s you have this can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days. Once you start it the process is automatic, so you don’t have to sit and wait for it.

Once a song is uploaded you can just point your web browser to play.google.com/music where you can play your music, create new playlists, search for songs and more. On your smartphone, the Google Music app will let you access the same thing. The music is streamed to your phone or computer, so it doesn’t take up any space on them.

Apple’s version of the cloud, called iCloud, works almost the same way. It automatically stores all of the music you have bought through iTunes, as well as all of the TV shows and movies that you bought from them. However, it doesn’t store any of the music that you bought outside of iTunes unless you buy their iTunes Match service for $24.99 a year.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the king of the cloud, Amazon.com. Their Amazon Cloud Player service works a lot like the other two, but it also automatically adds any MP3s or CDs you’ve purchased on Amazon to your cloud collection. The premium version of their service starts at $10 a year for 20 GB of storage.

So, if you have an Android phone, or if you really like the low price of free, check out Google Play Music. If you’ve got an iPhone, an iPad and a Macbook, iCloud is practically made for you. And if you buy a lot of music through Amazon, you should check out their premium Amazon Cloud Player service.

Caution: Be aware that streaming music does use data, so if you have a tight cap on your monthly data plan these cloud services might not be the right place for your music. But if you’ve got a decent data cap you probably don’t need to worry. Getting access to all of your music wherever you are is so convenient, you’ll never go back.

After signing contracts with three of the four major music labels (Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the Warner Music Group) to license their recordings, Apple has just entered the final stages of preparation for its cloud-based music service to be launched. Apple is still in negotiations with the largest of the four labels, Universal Music Group, but that deal is expected to be completed by sometime next week.

Like Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Google’s Music Beta, Apple’s cloud-based music service would allow users to store their digital music library on the Web and stream it directly to their smartphones, computers, tablets, and other electronic devices. However, unlike Amazon and Google’s cloud-based music services, which were introduced within the past two months, Apple has taken the added precaution of obtaining licenses from the major music labels as well as beginning to obtain licenses from music publishers, who ultimately control the copyrights for the composition of songs. While Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Google’s Music Beta services are free, Apple will likely charge a small fee to be able to use their streaming music service to offset the cost of the contracts with music labels and publishers. The permission to use copyrighted material will allow Apple’s cloud music service to have more advanced features than either Amazon or Google’s services though, which are essentially Web-based hard drives that users would have to directly upload music to. The label licenses would also allow Apple to design a more efficient system in which it is predicted that the service would be able to scan a user’s iTunes library and sync these songs to the company’s master collection located on Apple’s servers, without the hassle of having to upload each song to the cloud – which could take days.

With a ready market of over 200 million iTunes users, analysts say that Apple might announce the new music service as early as next month, when the company holds its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. “The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) showcases the latest innovations and the newest technologies in iOS and Mac OS X. Over 1,000 Apple engineers guide you through five exciting days of in-depth technical sessions and hands-on labs that demonstrate how to harness the incredible power of the world’s most advanced operating systems into your apps.”

Apple fanboys may have to wait a while until the service is ready for a release date though, as the company always makes sure to work out all the kinks and to release a product only when it has been thoroughly tested… but you should already know that by now, since Apple has seemingly become its own religion.

Photo by Mark Milian via CNN