Most of us are conditioned to respond to (or at least read) every email sent you immediately. But over a period of time, you realize the not every email needs immediate attention. While communication is important, the method need not always be email. If something is really time critical, (I have observed that) people you reach you by other means as well (apart from the email they sent you) Other emails are important by not time critical.

Default settings in outlook are to notify you (in multiple ways) of new email in your inbox. But do not need to know about each and every single email the instance it reaches your inbox. You can turn off these distractions by turning off the email notifications completely. But it is hidden very well by Microsoft

To turn off these notifications, navigate to the following location:

Tools->Options->Preferences->Email Options->Advanced Email Options

Now you will see screen similar to the one below. Uncheck all these check boxes.

Turn Off Email Notifications

While the above screen shot (and the location to reach this option) is taken from Outlook 2007, Options for other versions of outlook shouldn’t be very different.

As the thread above mentions, Lightening team has to bump up the minVersion to 3.0b2pre. That means you need to get nightly build (at least as of this writing. Once Beta 2 is released, it is recommended you use Official Beta 2, rather than nightly builds.) You can get the nightly build from here.

Since I downloaded the .zip file, there are no installation involved for me, just unzip the contents into desired folder. Personally I would suggest this method to you all, since this provides portability.

Setting up Gmail IMAP Account

Setting up regular IMAP account was very easy with TB 3.0b2pre. But what amazed me was how simple it is to setup Gmail account.  Gmail IMAP is already a preset option when you try to add a new account. In second (and only real) step you need to enter your Name (as it will be displayed to your recipients) and your email address. That is all there is to it.  The last step is confirmation, where is shows your choices, and you need to click Finish so that account is created. So all practical purposes it is essentially one step process.

Compare it to the instructions you need to follow for Thunderbird 2.0 (Latest TB released version as of this writing)

Before you set any calendar, you need to install and configure the plugin. The instructions are same as listed in my previous post. I had bit of a problem the first time, as in the New calendar option was not enabled. Restarting Thunderbird resolved the problem.

URL to your Google Calendar

1. Go to your Google Calendar
2. Go to Settings.
3. Go to Calendars Tab, and Select the appropriate calendar.
4. Scroll towards end of the page where you will see entry titled Private Address, and three icons next to it. (XML, ICAL and HTML)
5. Copy the URL for XML (Right Click->Copy Link Location in Firefox, Right Click->Copy Shortcut in IE)
6. You need to use this URL in Step 4 below.

Private Address URL for your Google Calendar

Setting up Google Calendar

1. File -> New ->Calendar (You need to be in Inbox view. If you are already in Calendar view, you will not see menu option)
2. On Network
3. Format -> Google Calendar
4. Location  :  As discussed in previous section. Use your Private URL here.
5. You need to Provide name and select color for your Google Calendar.

That’s it. Now you can see as well as update your Google Calendar from Thunderbird.

Note : Since the Lightning plugin was broken, I installed the nightly build of Thunderbird in different folder, just in case I need to go back to my working email environment.  If you are installing it afresh, ignore this comment.

Here is the quick list of pdb commands

• n : Execute next line
• s : Step inside a module
• p : Print the value of a variable
• c : Continue
• l : List. Shows stack trace
• q : Quit (Most important command )

For details, check this site

But what if I can’t debug interactively ?

Typically, you come across this problem when you are running the script on a server. Even if the script worked OK in test environment, in live environment something goes wrong, because the script is executed by server, and you can not control the arguments that are being passed to the script. In this scenario, you need to resort to age-old logging technique

Here are few line of code you need to add to your script. Modify as per your needs (especially paths)
Earlier in your script (as early as possible) add following lines :

from time import strftime
f = open('D:/temp/log.txt', 'r+')
f.write("-- Begin Log at %s --n" % strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"))


At the end of your script (as late as possible) add following lines :

f.write("-- End Log at %s --n" % strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"))
f.close()


Your basic logging infrastructure is ready. Now you can add f.write() lines through out your code, as and where needed.

Note : I’m part of pythondev group on twitter.  Visit the website for details.

The setup

1. In your Outlook 2003, invoke Visual Basic Editor, either by pressing Alt+F11, or navigating the menu as “Tools->Macro->Visual Basic Editor”
2. In the Left hand side “Project” panel, make sure entry named “ThisOutlookSession” is highlighted.
3. Copy paste the code given below in the Right hand side Panel.
4. Exit out of VB Editor by either Alt+Q or by navigating the menu item File->Close.

Security

1. Make sure that the security is set to “High” (Tools->Macro->Security)
2. The changes we made will NOT work with High security, so we need to “certify” our code, so that it always works.
3. Invoke “selfcert.exe” from “C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\OFFICE11\\SELFCERT.EXE”
4. In the dialog that pops up, Type your name.
5. Go back to Visual Basic Editor (Alt+F11 from Outlook)
6. Navigate to Tools->Digital Signature.
7. Click “Choose”
8. Select your name, Click “OK”
9. Click “OK” to come out of “Digital Signature” dialog.
10. Exit out of VB Editor (Alt+Q)

Activating the Macro

1. Restart your Outlook
2. When asked about macros, select “Enable Macros”

Test

1. Try sending an email with empty subject to yourself, to test if everything works.
2. Type “attach” or “attached” in email body and send email to yourself without actually attaching any file.

.. finally “The Code”

Please refer to my earlier post here