Thinkpad’s ship with a hardware feature
called “ThinkLight” which is a LED light which illuminates the keyboard during
low light conditions. This light is
somewhat bright and can catch your attention which is why you may want to
enable this for new messages that arrive in Outlook. The following post will guide you on how to
enable this in Outlook. This has only
been tested on a Lenovo ThinkPad T520 with MS Outlook 2010 and Windows 7. If you have any issues enabling this function
please post your issue in the comments and I will try to help you along if I
can.
First, you will need a command line
utility called “ThinkLight.exe” from Arkadiusz Wahlig. You can download from http://sites.google.com/site/filesarkadiuszwahlig/ThinkLight.exe?attredirects=0
you can save the exe file anywhere on your local system but for simplicity I recommend
the root of your C drive.
Second, in Outlook you will need to
enable the “Developer” ribbon. To do this select the “File” button on the
upper left corner of the window then “Options”.
From the “Outlook Options” window select “Customize Ribbon” and check
the “Developer” box under “Main Tabs” and then select “OK” and “File” again.
Third, now you need to setup a VBA
script to blink your ThinkLight. To
start select the “Developer” ribbon then “Marcos” selecting “Marcos”. For “Marcos” name enter “temp” or something
similar as we will delete this soon then select “Create”. A new window will appear with text similar
to:
Sub temp()
End Sub
Now delete all text replace with:
Sub ThinkLight(Item As Outlook.MailItem)
Shell
"C:\ThinkLight.exe blink 1"
End Sub
If “ThinkLight.exe” is not in the
root of the C drive change “C:\ThinkLight.exe” to reflect the correct file
path. Now go to “File” and “Save” then
“File” and “Close and Return to Microsoft
Outlook”
Fourth, an Outlook rule to process all incoming
emails and run the macro is needed. To
do this go to “File” from the main screen then “Manage Rules and Alerts” then
select “New Rule”. Within the rule wizard
use the "Apply rule on messages I receive" template and press “Next
>”. On the next screen select the “on
this computer” checkbox and select “Next >”.
On the next screen select “run a script” checkbox and below on the “Step
2” box click on “a script” and select the script that was just created and
select “OK” and “Next >” on the wizard window. On the next screen select and enter a rule
name and the “Turn on this rule” checkbox and select “Finish” and
then “OK”.
Lastly
we need to enable macros with Outlook.
From the main screen go to the “Developer” ribbon and select the “Macro
Security” option. Within the new window select
“Enable all macros”.
