vSphere 5.5 Client Integration Plug-In on Mac OSX Error

This took me quite a while to track this down so I decided to post a quick article on it.

Symptom:  Getting page cannot be displayed errors when attempting to access a virtual machine’s (VM) console while using Safari, Firefox, or Chrome on a mac.  This only applies for people using the VCSA (VMware vCenter Server Appliance) and running version 5.5.

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Synology NAS as Time Machine Backup Target Tip

This is a quick tip on using a Synology NAS to backup with Time Machine in OSX Lion / Mountain Lion.  If you have installed and are running the Synology Antivirus Essentials app, it is advisable to exclude the Time Machine backup location.  You can do this by creating and running a ‘custom scan’ instead of running a ‘full scan’.  If the antivirus makes any changes to the time machine sparsebundle it will likely cause the backup to become ‘corrupted’ from OSX’s standpoint, which will cause OSX to need to create a full backup again causing the loss of your backup history.

Sophos Antivirus for Mac is a good real-time scanning platform that you can use to protect your OSX based machines and it’s free.  http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx

Bit Defender for Mac is also offered in the Mac app store and as with all Bit Defender products I’ve come across offers solid and superior protection.  It’s free and can be used to scan your drives, however I did not see the ability to conduct specific items scans or provide live protection.

Good luck and hope this helps someone out.

Enable Tap-Drag in OSX Mountain Lion

It took a few minutes to track down, but here’s a quick note on how to enable Tap-Drag in OSX Mountain Lion.  To use: tap once then tap again and drag without pulling your finger off the trackpad.

Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > select “Mouse & Trackpad” > “Trackpad Options” click the checkbox for “Enable dragging”.

“With Drag Lock” means that if you need to take your finger off the trackpad, your next touch will allow you to continue dragging if it is a drag move.  To end Drag Lock, simply tap the trackpad.

“Without Drag Lock”, when you remove your finger from the trackpad the dragging will cease.

Battery Life Sank on Macbook Pro (2012) After Upgrading Hardware (?)

I recently purchased a new 2012 Macbook Pro, not the retina model, and have been loving it.  After a month or so of use, I decided to upgrade both the RAM and the hard drive because I wanted to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the machine that I could without paying the premiums that Apple charges for it’s upgraded parts.

After doing some research, I ended up purchasing a Crucial 256 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT256M4SSD2 and a Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz PC3 240 Pin DIMM Memory CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10 kit from Amazon.  I considered using OCZ for the SSD since performance on that drive was rated higher, but after seeing the power requirements of the OCZ, I changed my mind and went back with the Crucial.  I also read some user reviews that said that the OCZ had compatibility issues the MacBooks.