For those of you who have bought laptops/netbooks that don’t come with keyboard illumination, there’s a better way than simply attaching a reading LED light to your laptop/netbook (although that probably is the easiest way). You can actually hack your laptop/netbook to add an LED light near your webcam, all so you can control it with your keyboard for turning on/off. Of course, this is seriously a lot of work for adding a single LED light but it might be worth it if you compute in the dark a lot.
I’ve since modified my netbook and put in a ThinkLight equivalent; it’s a little LED in the display bezel that toggles on or off when you hold the Ctrl key for a few seconds. I also dimmed the power LED a little with some masking tape (I swear, sometimes it was brighter than the screen) and now the little netbook is so much more usable in the dark.
One more note, I think there’s an easier way to also illuminate your keyboards themselves by drilling couple holes onto your keyboard holder. Well, I won’t go there, I will let you imagine or try. Good luck.
