Starting tomorrow, Monopoly will expand its vast collection of game variations to its biggest “board” yet - Google Maps. That’s right, as of September 9th, you can play Monopoly on Google Maps.

While all the details are still fuzzy, as of this post the game is set to release around 1pm EST. What we do know is that this will be a full out Monopoly game - except that you could, in theory, purchase the street you actually live on! If my understanding is correct, almost all streets and places on Google Maps will be “playable” in the game. You can build houses, charge rent, and even test your luck with the famous Chance cards.

Be sure to check out the official blog for more details and game rules, and definitely keep checking the website tomorrow for the official release.  Another fine move by Google to think out of the box, uniting a classic game with the web service we have grown dependant upon.

As a raving Firefox fan for years, I can’t believe I’m writing this post. My love for all Mozilla products has always been because they “just work”. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case for me.

Over the past week, Firefox has been acting up - mainly sluggish page loads and running processes, even after the browser has been closed. Basically, this just means that I can’t run Firefox again until I end the process in Task Manager.

Google Chrome has been my #2 browser for several months, so I decided to give it a try. Within a day of serious use, I’m sold. As I posted earlier, Google is planning an entire OS built on the Chrome idea - browser/desktop integration. Chrome makes a great start with my current favorite feature - application shortcuts.

Take any website you visit, add an application shortcut, and you’ve now got a shortcut right on your desktop. Clicking this will open your page in a special Chrome page that’s set apart from normal browsing. This way, you can essentially add shortcuts to your favorite sites, saving a few steps if you just want to check your Gmail, Facebook or Twitter (or your Joupes account!).

JavaScript effects and plugins (like LightBox) are faster in Chrome than any other browser I’ve used. Page surfing is smooth and fast-loading. Despite it’s limited customization, Chrome looks good and the lack of buttons works to its advantage by freeing up lots of real estate. Other little design features like the downloads section, highlighted entry text boxes and “Most Visited” (much like the Fast Dial plugin for Firefox) links are icing on the cake.

Well done, Google. You’ve won me over. I look forward to you doing the same thing when Google Chrome OS comes out.

In keeping with the theme from the past few posts, Google has just introduced an easy way to recover your password.  Hopefully you’ll never have to use this - but just in case, it’s nice to have it set up.

To activate this feature, just go to your Google Account page.  Click here to go to it, as I’m sure many of you have never seen this page before (I hadn’t).  Then, just click “Change password recovery options” and add your mobile number.

Be sure to keep this number updated, as switching mobile numbers could result in your reset code being sent to a random person.