But sometimes the crowd is so huge that we need someone else to point them out. This post tries to accomplish just that. With tons of Google Chrome plugins available for our use, choosing the “few” useful ones could be time-consuming. Presented below are a dozen plugins that I found useful (with a little help from some of my friends).

1. Google Mail Checker Plus

The number of unread messages in your Gmail and Google Apps inbox are shown by this plugin. Options for Preview mail, read, delete, archive and mark as spam are available. Plus the really useful Desktop Notifications.

2. Google Reader Notifier (by Google)

This plugin displays the number of unread items in your Google Reader account. Clicking can show a preview popup or open your Reader account.

3. AdBlock

AdBlock for Chrome! blocks all advertisements on web pages.  Your browser is automatically updated with additions to the filter: just click Install, then visit your favorite website and see the ads disappear! I found this plugin performing better that AdSweep

3.1 Browser Button for AdBlock

If you have already installed AdBlock and want a browser action button, install this plugin. Browser Button for AdBlock adds a button next to your Wrench menu which lets AdBlock users block ads and whitelist domains without using keyboard shortcuts.

4. Chromed Bird

Chromed Bird is a Twitter extension that allows you to follow your timelines and interact with your Twitter account.

5. Pharaohs Time Tracker

Ever wanted to track your daily tasks and errands? This extension is for you. Pharaohs Time Tracker helps track your simple tasks and compile a list of activities that you could use for billing purposes, for instance.

6. Google Dictionary

With this extension, you can double-click any word to view its definition in a small pop-up bubble and view the complete definition of any word or phrase using the address bar dictionary.

7. Google Quick Scroll

Google Quick Scroll is a browser extension that helps you find what you are searching for faster. It lets you jump directly to the relevant bits of a Google search result. After you click on a Google search result, Quick Scroll may appear on the bottom-right corner of the page, showing one or more bits of text from the page that are relevant to your query. Clicking on the text will take you to that part of the page.

8. RemindMe

RemindMe allows you to setup reminders while browsing and sync them between computers.

9. Things To Do

This extension has a few subtle features, which can help you manage your to do list very efficiently.

10. Secure Sites

Offer to automatically redirect to the secure version of the websites you visit if it exists

11. Rapportive

Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.You can immediately see what people look like, where they’re based, and what they do. You can establish rapport by mentioning shared interests. You can grow your network by connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more. And you can record thoughts for later by leaving notes.Imagine relationship management built into your email.

Highly experimental. It didn’t work that great for me when I tried it for this article. But I am mentioning it here since it is something I want to use when it works the way it is supposed to.

12. Shareaholic

Share any web page with your friends right from the page you are on!  Post to your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Evernote, and more from one extension.

13. Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on

To provide website visitors with more choice about how their data is collected by Google Analytics, Google have developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics. When you can opt-out, why let Google to collect the data?

Update 04th September 2010

14. Ultimate Chrome Flag

This extension shows a country or region flag indicating the location of the website you’re visiting. And the following information will be shown in the popup: Country, Domain name and IP address, Geo information, Google PageRank, Alexa Rank and WOT (Web of Trust) information.

Very Useful.

I’m Feeling Lucky!
It was a hot day. We had a good supply of limejuice to quench the thirst. Five minutes of internet search, a sip of limejuice, five minutes of search, a sip of… An hour went by. I don’t know whether it was the heat or the juice, we keyed in the words ‘lime’ and ‘survey’ in the search and viola! We landed on LimeSurvey.org which is more than enough for us. Now we know, limejuice is good for producing brain waves!

On a serious note, we found Lime Survey through the Fantastico De Luxe tool provided by our hosting service provider, Arvixe. Lime Survey is a server based online survey tool. To install and use this tool, your PC should have a server (E.g. Apache), PHP and mySQL configured. Refer this page for detailed instructions.

Want to sample?

Before going to technical aspects, we invite you to visit a mock-up survey created using LimeSurvey tool to get the feel of things. If you find it interesting, let’s talk business. Otherwise, no harm done!

Installation
Lime Survey installation is very simple and easy.
-    Download the engine from LimeSurvey.org link.
-    “How to Install” file: [limesurvey-directory]/docs/manual.htm
-    Create a database (example: mySurvey) using your database access tool like phpMyAdmin.
-    Run the installer from [limesurvey-directory]/admin/install/index.php
-    Click Click and Click. You are done.
Points to note
-    Default Database Name: limesurvey
-    Default Username: admin
-    Default Password: password
-    Login Page : [limesurvey-directory]/admin/admin.php

First Impression
Simplicity and elegance start right from the welcome page.

Click on the image for a bigger picture.

Let’s start a survey. I try the first button. No; it is Home button. I try the second. Not good either. I continue like this till I reach the rightmost end.  The ‘New Survey’ button is kept at the rightmost corner while buttons for advanced uses are placed on the left side of the taskbar. LimeSurvey must have some reason for this placement. Unfortunately, I started at the wrong end.

Creating A Survey
Clicking New Survey button loads the following page that has tabbed pages for easy distribution of information. If you are grouping the survey questionnaire, this info is to be put in ‘Presentation & Navigation -> Format’

Click on the image for a bigger picture.

Templates
More than a dozen templates come with LimeSurvey. Among them, the most elegant is Mint Idea which is accessible from ‘Presentation & Navigation -> Template.’ We used this template for our survey.
A handful of templates are available at LimeSurvey.org.

Question Formats
I am bowled over by the range of question formats in lime survey – 27 different varieties in total! Want to sample a few? 5 point choice, Array (10 point choice), Array (5 point choice), Array (Flexible Labels) dual scale, Array (Increase, Same, Decrease)… to think that this is only the tip of the ice berg! Whatever you want to ask has already been figured out by LimeSurvey. Brilliant! This is the main feature that distinguishes LimeSurvey from other free online survey websites.

Publish Your Survey
Publishing the survey is just a click away. After you finished creating your questionnaire, activate the survey by selecting the leftmost ‘Activate The Survey button.’

Click on the image for a bigger picture.

Our Experience
antzFx.com ran a survey on ‘Online Ads: Who clicks them?’ from 01-Nov-2008 to 20-Nov-2008. This is the mock-up survey you probably visited from the link given at the starting of this article. A number of formats are available to store the results like .CSV, .RTF and .XLS. After closing the survey, we used MS Excel (.XLS format) to analyse the data and draw the graphs. You can read the survey results here.

More Information
I can write page after page explaining the features of LimeSurvey. A pretty long list is put together at the feature page of LimeSurvey.org. It has everything I can think as a user. Still they are adding multitude of features everyday. Explore and have fun!

Software: LimeSurvey Ver.1.72
Design date: 29-Oct-2008