Two copies of Flare?

[ccardimon]

I heard we are allowed to install two copies of Flare, and they will both function as long as both copies are not running at the same time. Is this true?

[rob hollinger]

According the EULA -
You can install 2 copies of Flare so long as they are on different domains (Work and Home):

Eula - #2 explains the licensing and can be found in a folder called InstallerResources where the software is installed.

[ccardimon]

Hi Rob,

That's exactly where I would install the second copy. On my work from home days, when I wirelessly VPN into my desktop at the office and start Flare, things start to drag a whole lot. I was thinking that maybe if I installed Flare on my own personal laptop, then I wouldn't be putting such a strain on the VPN.

[rob hollinger]

Craig,
There can be a "gotcha" with that unless the project is local to your machine.
VPN is a hit and miss for a lot of people.

Personally, I VPN into the office network and then use Remote Desktop into my workstation and that keeps all the power and projects on the same machine. It avoids having to do a ton of file transfers over the VPN.

[ccardimon]

This is what I'm thinking about doing:

1. Install Flare on my laptop
2. VPN into office
3. Remote Desktop to my desktop
4. Projects will be kept on the office desktop system

Sound reasonable?

[rob hollinger]

Craig,
Perfect - but if you use the Remote software, you wont need to install Flare on your home system. You can use the software installed on the system you remote into.

[ccardimon]

Perfect - but if you use the Remote software, you wont need to install Flare on your home system. You can use the software installed on the system you remote into.

Rob, that's what I have been doing, but Flare 8 takes up lots of memory, and I would swear that working from home takes place in a sort of slow motion reality. Flare seems to slow down when I remote into my desktop.

[RamonS]

My experience is that everything is slow when using remote desktop. Flare might redraw the screen frequently which then needs to be shipped over the VPN to be properly displayed. You may want to try some tweaks for remote desktop (see http://tnind.wordpress.com/how-to-speed ... onnection/).
Alternatively, you could try VNC with SSL or a different remote control application. Not sure if it will make a difference. Also, it depends on your connection at home. I used to have 15/1.5 and now after switching ISP get 15/5, which noticeably improved remote desktop performance because the pipe coming into my home has more bandwidth.

[ccardimon]

Ramon, one thing I noticed in particular is using the scroll bar on the side to page down or up in Flare. This is just fine in the office, but approaches miserable when working from home. When remoting into my Flare, which lives on my office desktop, the whole arrow down thing becomes a case of "chug...wait...chug...wait...chug..." It is positively laborious.

[kevinmcl]

Craig,
There can be a "gotcha" with that unless the project is local to your machine.
VPN is a hit and miss for a lot of people.

Personally, I VPN into the office network and then use Remote Desktop into my workstation and that keeps all the power and projects on the same machine. It avoids having to do a ton of file transfers over the VPN.

That's exactly what I do, except my copy of Flare resides on a server in a Windows Server 2008 virtual machine instance at the office, and my Flare project source lives on another server.

Formerly, I had my Flare and my source on my laptop, but synchronizing with the server repository every day was a huge operation over the VPN, as was publishing to the review folder (again on the server).

Now, I Remote Desktop to the vm instance and tell Flare to do big operations, and it does them on the same machine or within the office LAN, and the only traffic over the VPN is the Remote Desktop commands and screen refreshes. No dragginess due to VPN latency. Even if/when the VPN hangs up entirely, any process I've launched via Remote Desktop just continues until I reconnect and pick up where it has finished or at least where it progressed to, while I was disconnected.

If I get sick or grabbed for some other project, my co-worker can jump in with Flare via Remote Desktop to his corner of the VM, connect to my project, and carry on. There's no hassle of transferring huge volumes of files from my laptop to his. Recommended.