The only thing worse than a lost password is a stolen one. Google can't help you with the stolen one, but the company finds itself helping some of its millions of Gmail and other Google Web services users get back into their accounts through the Gmail Help Center.

Today, Google is letting users recover passwords via text message, a helpful feature for when users can't find those passwords scrawled on paper, or buried in an Outlook or some other computer file.

To turn this on for your account, just sign in to Google Accounts, select "Change Password Recovery Options," click "Verify" to vet your password, go under the "SMS" heading, enter your cell phone number and click "Save."

Next time you forget your password, Google will text you a recovery code once you enter your username on the password assistance page.

That seems like a simple tip, but there is a broader theme at play here. Google is trying to make the relationship between your personal computers and your mobile phones as harmonious as possible. So, technologies designed to connect users to the Web through desktop devices are being ported to work through mobile devices and vice versa.

For example, take My Location, a Google Maps for Mobile application that uses cell tower identification to give users their approximate location information by triangulating users' mobile phones.

The company today enabled the blue My Location circle on Google Maps for desktop and laptops so that users can track their location from their work or home computers with a single mouse click. Users need the new Firefox 3.5 build, which is fortified with location-aware browsing, Chrome 2.0, or any browser with Google Gears installed.

When you visit Google Maps, you'll see the My Location blue circle in the top left corner of the map. Click this button to center the map to your location. If your location can be determined accurately enough, it's shown with a blue circle, just like on Google Maps for Mobile. Click the button again to remove the blue circle, or to re-center the map.

So why would you want to do this? Steve Block, Google software engineer, and Noam Ben Haim, product manager, noted in a blog post:

If you've just arrived in an unfamiliar city, My Location is a handy way to view the map around you, even if you don't know the street address. You can find things to do nearby or work out the best way to get where you need to go.

I am sad because Google Maps My Location could not find my location on that map, even after I allowed Firefox to share the location-browsing data with Google Maps and despite the fact that just today I saw a Google Maps mobile tooling around my Connecticut suburb.

Block and Haim warn us: "Google Maps may not be able to provide a location at all." But that doesn't mean you'll be left out, too. Give it a try and tell me how it works so I may live vicariously through your anecdotes.

Then again, maybe I should be comfortable that Google can't find me now. It has enough information on me as it is between search, Gmail and the other Google apps.

With Google Maps' My Location for the desktop, Google can find us at home and in the office, as well as on the go. TechCrunch's MG Siegler points out the localized advertising opportunities here.

Consider, too, Google's earnest privacy pledge: "The first time you use My Location on Google Maps, you'll be asked to confirm that you're happy to share your location with Google Maps, and you can always undo your decision."

Would you use My Location for your desktop or laptop without fear?