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Geeks old enough to remember using MS-DOS will undoubtedly remember the feeling of automating their bootup programs using a batch file. Around the same time that Bill Gates muttering that 640K ought to be enough memory for anyone, those same geeks looked at each other and begin whittling down their batch files so there was more memory. After all, Gates’ developers were working hard on Windows and the Office suite which would suck the memory out of anyone’s system. Along the way, we learned to be judicious with all of our new toys when we stretched them to the breaking point.  One more phone app? Okay, okay, but that’s a pretty clunky menu.

Google's Chrome extension page
Google’s Chrome extension page

And then Chrome, the uber-fast browser expected to be at the heart of Google’s operating system launching in 2010, went down the Firefox path and started adding extensions and themes.  There are some under-the-hood differences that won’t slow down Chrome’s sleek browsing as much, but everything — even wicked cool plugins — in moderation is a good axiom.

I think I’ve installed darn near everything I could lay my hands on up until now.  One reason that is so much easier is because you don’t have to reboot Chrome for changes to take effect. As of today, here are 10 Chrome Extensions I still like and have kept installed:

1.   Feedly.   I may have kept Firefox as active as I did simply to use this amazing UI for Google Reader.  Feedly is my favorite extension.

2.  Lorem Ipsum Generator.  We do a lot of mockups.  This easy dummy text generator ends the need for copy and paste.

3.  Xmarks.  This critical bookmark synchronization tool came out in Chrome’s dev channel as alpha.  It is a must install everywhere.

4.  Google Wave Notifier.  You may use Wave for business one day so it’s worth letting a process keep tabs on your incoming Waves for now.

5.  StumbleUpon.   You don’t use this wisdom of crowds page suggestion tool?   So start already.   Results become relevant as you do.

6.  News Reader. A Google contribution.  Click the button and get a balloon with the latest 5 US News stories — with hyperlinks.  Great.

7.  Cooliris. Another port to Chrome, this is the best browser image viewer on the planet

8.  Facebook. Warning — it’s unofficial.  But it’s a useful way to track your FB happenings without getting caught in the main site’s time suck.

9.  AddtoAny.  Another unofficial port, this of the terrific browser plugin that lets you spam communicate among multiple channels.

10.  DotSpots. There are only 17,000 users so far, but this is my darkhorse pick for annotating web pages and sharing across the world. I’ve tried to give you a good mix of ports, new stuff and old favorites.  As of this writing, only the Wave notifier, Cooliris and Xmarks are in the top 10 downloaded Chrome extensions so hopefully you got some great ideas here.  Just please don’t install AdThwart and AdBlock on that list.  We all have to make a living, right?

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The acceleration rate of Google announcements is amazing to watch.   As Search Engine Strategies’ Chicago conference roars into full swing this week, Google has:

* Offered an olive branch to mainstream media
* Introduced some nifty Android phone apps that has my wife broadly hinting about a new phone
* Finally introduced official extensions for Google Chrome
* Finally launched Google Chrome for Mac in development/pre-beta
* Launched all kinds of translation and other gadgets.
* Fundamentally changed the search engine results for everyone in North America using Google’s search engine.

Did you miss that last announcement?   We’ve been telling people for several years not to pay attention to rankings because they differ.  They’ve been slightly differing for a very long time.   Now comes the time when they will be different for everyone.

We could explain the ins and outs, but it’s easier to quote and show you the official Google video.  On their official blog, Google posted last week that,

Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we’re doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well.

What does that mean?

Search guru Danny Sullivan calls this phase Search 4.0.   Danny says:

The short story is this. By watching what you click on in search results, Google can learn that you favor particular sites. For example, if you often search and click on links from Amazon that appear in Google’s results, over time, Google learns that you really like Amazon. In reaction, it gives Amazon a ranking boost. That means you start seeing more Amazon listings, perhaps for searches where Amazon wasn’t showing up before.

Sullivan continues:

If they’re looking for a plumber, Amazon probably isn’t close to being relevant, so the personalization boost doesn’t help. But in cases where Amazon might have been on the edge? Personalization may help tip into the first page of results. And personalization may tip a wide variety of sites into the top results, for a wide variety of queries.

We told readers a month ago to stop chasing rankings.   We even said in March that “search rankings are dead” as a metric.

Online marketing is about increasing profit.   Is generating profit easier if a page on your web site is at the top of someone’s search results?   Sure.  But ranking is also also about engagement, promotion through advertising and  dozens of other significant factors.    You still have to do the basics:  you need well-written copy on pages organized in a search-engine friendly way with the appropriate meta information, including page titles (title tags) that technically aren’t meta tags.  And you need links from other relevant, authoritative web sites and many other things.

Those are the table stakes.  That’s what lets you put your site into play as a viable commercial web site.   But stop saying you want to be #1 for widgets in your town.  Because your #1 is my #7 is your supplier’s #43.   We always tell our clients to follow the money.   A search engine ranking is not a proxy for profit.

Here’s what the Google camp says about their new search results:

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A network connection’s DNS settings are kind of like your body’s DNA.   DNS is an acronym for Domain Name System.   This is the system that translates a string of numbers into the words you type in a browser to go to a web address.

One way of thinking about this is accessing Yahoo! via your phone.   You type m.yahoo.com.    That gets translated in the connections to 69.147.76.15, which is an address where Yahoo!’s servers for mobile versions of their sites reside.

Now Google is offering a service that harnesses the company’s extensive data center and connections in what company officials say will make your browsing experience faster.  I’ve tested this through several connections, and I have seen faster results using different operating systems and browsers.   Whether you trust Google’s privacy promises to not tie all of your browsing history to your account is another matter.   Remember that your workplace or your home Internet provider already has this information.

This is not a recommendation that you use Google’s DNS service, but if you choose to do so, Google’s DNS  instructions are in plain English on the company’s site.  And in a first for the company that famously doesn’t talk to end users, there is even telephone support.

Yessir, Google wants you sending their traffic through them, and the service is noticeably faster in some cases.  Your mileage may vary, and you have to choose the privacy options best for your particular situation.