Trimble Business Center

Is there a low profile sentinel key option? I would love to be able to leave my key in my laptop all the time. This would also help when in the field because I am always afraid I am going to break it off. 

I have seen these around the Office - we have not standardized on them on the CEC side - a Product Manager tried one and left it in his Laptop but it Broke off so he decided on ourr side that the value of changing was not so high. I am looking to see if the Geospatial Side offer these and if they do what it will take to get you one to switch out your existing License.

There will likely be a replacement cost item here as we do not reuse old Keys - so yours would get destroyed in the process of exchange, and I think the current cost for a USB Key is $50 or something like that (need to check) - but if we do them and you are prepared to pay the cost and can return your key within 30 days to me directly (or bring it to PUG and we can do the exchange there), and you can give me your License Details (as we will have to update our License Info for your seat etc. then I will do what I can to get you one. You would need to place a PO on SITECH to facilitate this as well.

I will get back to you when I hear from the Geospatial Team as to whether or not we stock these keys now.

Alan

Patrick: May I chime in here. A while back I tried a mouse/keyboard that had a very low profile transmitter key. Anyway, I put it in my field laptop in the most out-of-the-way USB port thinking I could just leave it in. It was gone after a day or so... No idea how it got 'scrubbed' out of the USB port as I am very cautious with my gear but it was gone.

I checked the bag, the floor, the floor of the truck, and everywhere else I could think of but it was definitely gone.

All that to say the low profile keys aren't as "lose proof" as I thought they would be.

Marshall

I appreciate that Marshall. I go back and forth with the idea. I have come way too close to shearing it off when I am running around in the field that I think it would be the lesser of two evils. 

Just a thought:  if you snap it off you probably have a chance of getting a new one from trimble for the $50 or so fee, rather than losing the small one and having to buy a new one for full price.  I say this because I have also lost a few micro mouse transmitters.  One other suggestion: when I was doing a lot of work in the field, I plugged my hardware lock into a small 4 port usb hub with a couple other hardware locks, I then made an aluminum box to fit everything in, that way the only thing exposed that could break is the cheap hub, you could even leave the box in your laptop bag or truck console and run a 3-6 foot usb cable from it so you never have to move it.

That is not a bad idea Wayne.

I am going to run a couple of test dummies.

I run all my stuff off a USB Hub and I leave it all plugged into the USB HUB in my bag (I dont have the aluminum box). If the USB Hub has a cable it flaps about so if you do happen to catch it on something it flops out of the way more than breaking something off

However I am waiting for a Geospatial Colleague to come back to me on whether they offer the low profile key

Alan

The Geospatial team does have the Low Profile key (that is what they use today) - I have asked for a price etc. and will let you know what it would cost to get your license moved over to a low profile key - it is likely that we dont have a price or a part number to do this (which means while it is physically possible to do it is pretty hard to execute "officially" - but we could do a one off transition at PUG and bill you a Professional Services fee or something like that to get this done.

Let me know if you want that, it would likely be $50 to do the paperwork and get you the license moved over, and we can do that during PUG while you are in Colorado.

I will make it work somehow if you want it

Alan