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I've spoken of the wonders of Chrome's Google Mail Checker Plus extension before. If you missed the memo, here's a quick hit: Mail Checker Plus drops a little icon next to your address bar that gives you a frequent update as to how many unread messages are in your Gmail account. You'd think that was it, given the simplicity of what said extension has to do. However, Google Mail Checker Plus dumps a ton of options into your lap for complete and total customization of this little icon and its functionality, including the ability to drop a preview window that gives you a quick glance as to what said emails actually are, as well as complete color controls and "always-on" SSL connectivity.
Great, eh? But frequent users of Google's services will note that there's more than just Gmail to worry about. What's going on in your Google Reader feed? Any new messages come through Google Voice? What the heck is Wave and how many unread messages do you have on your watery messaging service?
That's where the simplicity of the extension One Number comes into play. As you might expect from my foreshadowing, this extension allows you to combine the unread messages from Google's four big feeds (sorry, no Buzz support just yet) into a single icon.
But suppose you don't care about Google Reader--or, for that matter, suppose that you have just too many feeds to be able to adequately keep track of them all via a single icon. That's fine. You can customize One Number to display any mix of the four tracked services you want. While the number overtop the icon will always display the combined "not looked at" amount, hovering your mouse over said icon will break this grand summation down into its requisite parts.
Maximum PC picks one new Chrome extension as its favorite of the week each... week. Have a nifty extension that you can't live without? Twitter David Murphy @acererak with your latest suggestions.
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