More info. We are replacing the fire sprinklers on 4 floors. Each floor is 
60,000 square feet and divided by security corridors with locked doors at each 
end. The badges are ID only, for floor and building access. We are the Prime 
GC. We can mount stations on the walls. The whole setup will be temporary. The 
firewatch patrol is while we are replacing each floor's west or east side, 
until each section is fully operational. The data needs to be stored in the 
badge (or key/fob). No cabling of any kind allowed at each station (not even 
power), and not much success getting any wireless inside each floor to work 
past a few walls.
I am dreaming of badges that use wireless smartcard, RFID, or other similar 
tech, and each station uses a battery that lasts more than 7 days. Then the 
person on patrol, just walks by the station, and the badge records the event, 
date and time. At end of shift or even end of week, we read the badges. At 
least if it is a badge, then they should not loose them (they seem to remember 
their building badges). Not wanting any kind of real time or GPS system, since 
we don't need that level of tracking. We just need a way to make sure the 
person did walk his route, during his shift.



Gene Giannamore
Abide International Inc.
Technical Support
561 1st Street West
Sonoma,Ca.95476
(707) 935-1577    Office
(707) 935-9387    Fax
(707) 766-4185    Cell
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 3:14 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: [OT] Guard tracking system

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Gene Giannamore
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Since our guard force is required to wear badges for building
> and floor access, we figured one more badge for the tracking system would be
> best (rather than a key or fob).

  When you say they have to wear badges, do you mean the badges are
for an access control system (door locks)?  If so, the system may
already have such a feature.  We just invested in a access control
system, and it has a "Guard Tour" feature that purports to do just
what you're asking for.

  I will say this: Before you buy, see if you can get hands on with
the PC software which supervises the show, and ideally, the equipment
itself.  For our system, People Outside The IT Department(TM) bought
it and then came to us, and we've discovered the software is total
crap.  Needs admin rights, has to have some stuff running in the
foreground (no service-only), crashes and locks up a lot, slow,
overall flaky, poorly documented, ugh.  I suspect this is one of those
industries which is forever trapped in the 1985 PC mindset.  There
have also been some issues with the actual door control units not
quite working as advertised, and generates spurious alarms.  System's
been installed for six months and it still doesn't work right.  Ugh.
Some of all this might be the installer company, though; we also
discovered they've never used this system before.  Ugh ugh ugh!

-- Ben

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

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