Steinberg's dongle alternative coming

Sturdier dongles could result in damaged USB ports/cards/ hubs etc. Expensive to repair on a laptop. I bought a USB utility pack from Aldi a few years ago, it included a short USB extension cable, from which my dongle has dangled since. I’ve had at least one incident since then which may have resulted in a broken dongle/damaged USB socket, but the dongle is still intact.

Hi,

My USB EXTENSION (from eBay costing 1GBP) arrived today. I thought this may be of help/use to others on the forum.



Just need to wait for the new dongle design to be released now. This and the extension lead should hopefully be a suffice and reliable combination. Hopefully the new release will be shortly after June.

Cheers,

Paul

Hi,

Is ALDI the wisest choice of store to purchase computer-ware from!?

Paul

Not necessarily, but for something as low-value as a USB extension lead it’s fine and probably dirt cheap.

Paul, I was looking at your pictures and I couldn’t help but notice all the chewing gum wrapped around your USB dongle. what’s up with that?

monsterjazzlicks wrote "Is ALDI the wisest choice of store to purchase computer-ware from!? I wasn’t advising anyone to get their extension lead from Aldi Paul, even though there’s nothing wrong with Aldi products. I don’t think I’d have advised getting the cable from eBay though…

Still, I’m glad you were receptive to my post and have adopted my idea.

Hi there Woodcrest,

Well I did give a full explanation with PGN’s over the weekend but all the posts got removed by a Moderator (for being ‘off topic’). So I just left it and put it down to forum rules&regs. I have heard that you can have your account closed down for posting unrelated replies/questions (to the subject-matter of the thread) and I don’t want to risk that happening to me!

But feel free to PM or even SKYPE me any time mate.

Cheers,

Paul

Thermonic

Sure mate, I think you were meaning that you personally purchased one from there which you believe to be adequate for your needs. Rather than gospel advice for others.

In all probability, the USB I won on eBay is most likely not dissimilar to you Aldi model!

Best,

Paul

Only five days left.

Adamantium-like dongle.

More like ‘unobtanium’! :wink:

I bought this 10cm USB extension on Amazon (there are also on eBay by searching “USB 10cm”), and this protects the USB plug of my eLicenser dongle (weakest part of the dongle).

I usually plug it here, unplug it there. if I didn’t have this USB extension to bear for it, my dongle would have ended up breaking by now.


USB.png

Hi,

Chewing gum? It’s a blue rubber band! lol

Ta,

Paul

Any news on this? I am not monitoring the forum regulary…

After my mobile dongle is almost dead again I had to order a new one (I have to do this every few years) - and I realized it is shorter and more handy now - which I highly appreciate.

But still: I would really like to be able to have my mobile license (I have two licenses because I have to avoid downtime in the studio caused by loosing / breaking the dongle on a gig or maybe just forgetting in the rehearsal room) as a soft elicenser or something - like you can do with some of the iLok protected plugins… which I will never do on my studio computer but it is nice on the laptop because no one wants to use an ilok AND an elicenser here - it would be fine in a recording secenario but on a stage, during a heavy metal gig, beside the drumkit, in a blood, sweat and beer scenario…

I even started to think about switching to Logic to be able to get rid of the dongle… but this is too complicated… I need to swap projects between studio and laptop…

I would suggest the following to the Steinberg developers to implement a secure licensing system by software: The licensing application could pair:

  • The username and password from the Steinberg customer area, and…
  • The combination of the most significant pieces of hardware of the computer scanned with serial numbers of, e.g. motherboard with its serial number, SSD with its serial number, etc…

From their customer area online, the customer can manage their computers on which they can install the application, e.g. license for 1 or 2 computers. If they need to replace an SSD, they just delete the current computer profile from the customer area, replace the faulty SSD, rescan the computer hardware to recreate a computer profile, and then assign the license to the new profile.
This concept could be enhanced, but I think this would be safe for Steinberg to protect their intellectual property, and this would be convenient for the end users, effectively getting rid of the dongle.

well, I payed another 20 EUR for a new elicenser - which I do not mind I have to say - but maybe the sum of broken elicensers wordwide causes a nice side-profit on this :slight_smile: Which I would not mind either… I am just thinking that time has come to have an alternative… I still like the idea of dongles - I can move my ilok and the elicenser in the studio to another machine with no problems so I could have 2 identical setups (for backup or whatever) if I want - BUT we should be able to choose a dongle free version if we need… in my opinion.

We are well aware of the needs and demands you - well, we all - have. The USB-eLicenser can be very convenient or a big annoyance depending on how you work.
Changing or improving a system that has been around for many years it something that takes some time and thorough planning. All I can say at this point is that the USB-eLicenser will continue to be around for some time to come but we are considering and evaluating other option for the future.

Hey Ed!

Thanks a lot for participating and your comment! Good to know :slight_smile:
As you said - can be convenient or annoying - im my case 80/20 I would say :slight_smile: In the studio I would never switch to a soft-licenser, and most of the time I am locked in the studio.

All we need is a dongle made of steel. Completely unbreakable. Period.

a dongle made of steel

sounds like Manorwar!

Count me in :slight_smile:

and looking like a sword!