I am going to go out on a limb and assume that many BlackBerry users have no clue you can reprogram the side buttons on their BlackBerry devices.  RIM has provided this little known feature for some time now. The reason I say this is because, far too frequently, I hear the classic statement, Say a command. I have been in meetings, elevators, planes, bathrooms, and even the movies and heard this break the silence of the room.

Maybe Buttons Are Bad?

I’ve personally hit the voice dialing or camera button on my BlackBerry Storm so often that I’ve just disabled them both. I am sure some iPhone fan will explain that this is exactly why Steve Jobs hates buttons.  I don’t believe that the side buttons on a BlackBerry are a design flaw because they are very actually very useful.  It is just that most BlackBerry users forget to lock their device before they put it into their pocket.

Change The Defaults

I, myself, don’t need dedicated buttons for the BlackBerry camera or voice dialing as they both have prime spots on my home screen on opposite sides of the screen, so, if your like me and you want to disable or reprogram the buttons dedicated to camera or voice dialing on  your device, do the following:

Got Options –> Screen/Keboard and scroll down until you see Right Side Convenience Key Options and Left Side Convenience  Key Options.  You can set them to nothing, as, I have, or to something less annoying than the voice command prompt or your BlackBerry camera for those times that you accidentally hit the button.