Things to install for Windows 7 Flash Lite Development

I seem to be setting up a few environments for Flash Lite development on Windows 7, especially on Macbook Pro 2010 i5/i7's with all the virtualization/boot-camping going on!

Some realities - the packaged Apple Nvidia drivers for Windows causes some Windows 7's running Aero to crash under strain - there is a fix with one of the links below. If you want to run something like Carbide.ui (for Nokia theme development) - it's VERY slow running something like parallels, and buggy it seems - you cannot avoid having a pure XP/Windows 7 environment for hassle free Nokia-orientated development. This might change in the future, but I don't think we are there yet. Paragon Software released something called HFS+ for Windows (Win7 64-bit supported), I have only been using it for a couple of weeks, so I'm not going to add in until I am sure it's cool. I have a feeling that it's not a good idea to keep files you will be accessing a lot from Windows on your HFS volume, things like forks are not currently supported.

These are the things that need to be installed on my Windows 7 (64-bit version in this case) machine before I can really start working (this is very much for my own reference, for future cases):

Flash Lite Specific:

• Adobe CS Suite containing at least Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, Bridge & Device Central
• Flash Extensions: Organize Library, Add Stop Frames, Name Objects
• AS2 Libraries: Tweenlite+Plugins, QueueLoader or PreLoadAssetManager
  
• Nokia Flash Lite API Bridge & Actionscript API Library
• Flashdevelop (Associate with .as files & I made this AS2 template )
  
• SecureSWF (Encrypt your SWF content)
  
• Symbian Carbide.UI (Nokia theme creation)
  

Other Apps & Utilities:

• Firefox / Chrome / Safari
  
• Thunderbird
  
• Thunderbird Add-ons: Stationary & Lightning Calendar
  
• Pidgin (IM from one app)
• Skype (Phone conferences)
  
• LibreOffice (Cross-platform & Free Office Suite)
• Notepad++ (Open source text-editor, powerful!)

• Dropbox (great for transferring files while you are setting up too)
• Evernote (sync your notes across your mobile and pc devices)
• FileZilla (SFTP support added)
• TortoiseSVN (64-bit supported)
• Explorer++ (If you want a more powerful Windows Explorer)
• 7Zip (Open-source cross-platform compression/decompression 64-bit available)
  
• uTorrent (Lightweight torrent client, get Vuze if you want to go crazy)
• Growl (Very popular on Mac, finally coming to Windows!)

Audio/Visual:

• Inkscape (My favourite Open-source SVG editor)
• Audacity (Open-source WAV editor)
  
• Quicktime Pro (Basic editing, conversion to MOV if required)
  
• Shark Coded Pack (Let's you play and preview in explorer)
• MacbookPro Aero Fix (Fix crashing Macbook Pro i5/i7 Nvidia driver issues)
  

• Winamp Lite (Lightweight MP3 player)
  
• Gnaural (Binaural beats below your music)
  
• Last.fm (Subscription service is awesome and cheap)

I am sure there are some better alternatives for some... I will update for my own reference when I find it.

Flash vs Apple - for us that actually develop Flash

I have seen fellow Flash developers go through highs and lows trying to imagine what kind of future there is for them, not just with the current dispute between Adobe/Flash and Apple, but in general over the past 5 years as mobile has become more dominant. Here are my thoughts, and when the next spat comes out, I suspect this might still be relevant:

I'm overjoyed about all the drama going on between Adobe and Apple - it's never wise to start a publicity war against the masters of PR (Apple). The most obvious thing is that Flash is getting much more attention since Youtube got them back in the game through video - and this has put some serious pressure on Adobe to sort out nagging issues they have been trying to ignore for the past few years.

As you might notice, I am not worried, we are the guys that have been working with "flash lite" one of the many flash-related technologies that Adobe/Nokia have actively/accidentally botched up the past 4 years. In certain aspects things are better now (with Apple playing a very large role in this) - but it just taught us the lesson, if you are working at the bleeding edge (which everyone seems to be doing these days), things are going to be shaky/uncertain, ALWAYS - that is part of the fun of it all - the fact at the end of the day you can only trust your own gut and there are really very few that can tell you what and how you should be doing it.

For us Flash has never been about trying to reach iPhone consumers. For us it has always been an extremely open programming AND creative fast-prototyping tool, that both programmers and creatives could work on together. I don't see that changing anytime soon, even if developers are all C crazy, you still have to get creatives to surrender their tools (which is not easy if you think that some top designers STILL secretly use Freehand) - the point is, you just don't change programmer's and creative's workflow overnight - it might even just wreck it. As long as a tool allows you to develop/prototype your ideas quickly and get actual people to use it, that's enough for me (at this stage).

I think one of the biggest fears is, especially with those who used to be comfortable doing Flash for the web, is that all of a sudden have to think "backwards" in terms of processing power and size, it's scary when things are changing, but Adobe/Apple got us all into the mobile space somehow, and if not prepared for the turbulence, maybe better to paddle out to calmer niches?

I think our saving grace has been that we have always been aware how capricous technology and hardware providers are, and that their sheer size and corporate responsibilities can make them do really stupid things... to expect otherwise is just being out of touch with reality, and will make you feel very angry/depressed. We have been there, our best advice is to get over it and see how you can make the best of it - all your competitors have to do the same, there are very few silver bullets out there!