How to easily lock your phone

Well, as you likely know, all BlackBerrys let you lock the keyboard to prevent such a thing from happening, but it’s a bit of a drag to initiate as you must scroll down to the appropriate icon to lock the keyboard before putting it away.

There is a quicker solution, though, which works with all BlackBerrys running version 4.2 software or higher, including the BlackBerry Pearl, Curve and 8800 series such as 8830 World Edition smartphone.

Your BlackBerry has a Stand-By switch at the top of the handset (near the power button). It might look like a speaker with a slash through it. Hold it down for a second and it will say “Entering Standby Mode,” and your screen will go dark. Essentially this locks your keyboard until you press the Stand By button again. You will still get phone calls and emails.

Alternatively, you can press Enter and Alt on the keyboard at the same time and it will lock the keyboard. To unlock it, hold down the asterisk button and then tap the green Talk key. If this doesn’t work, you will likely need to first shut off the input language shortcut (under Options > Language).