Calculate After-Tax Mortgage Rate

Knowing the after-tax mortgage rate can help to determine whether prepaying the mortgage makes sense. Here is the formula.

After-tax mortgage rate = mortgage rate * ( 1 - federal income tax bracket )

To find your federal tax bracket, see this or this.

For example, the mortgage rate is 4%, the federal income tax bracket is 28%
the after-tax mortgage rate = 4% * ( 1 - 28% ) = 2.88%

The rate probably is lower, because you can also deduct the mortgage interest on your state income tax return.

Install VMware Root Certificate Into Your Browser

If you use the default VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) came with vSphere 6 (see this about VMCA) , you will receive the untrusted certificate warning when connecting to vCenter via vSphere Web Client.

You can download and import the VMCA root certificate into your browser to fix the warning. Here is how.

1. Browser to your VCSA home page

2. Click “Download trusted root CA certificates” on the lower right

3. Rename the file “download” to “download.zip”

4. Unzip “download.zip”
   “filename.r0” is the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) in DER format
   “filename.0” is the root CA certificate in PEM format.

5. Import the .0 file to your browser’s “Trusted Root Certification Authorities” in IE or Advanced, View Certificates, Authorities in Firefox.

vSphere 6 Certificate Authority

VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) is a component in the Platform Services Controller (PSC) of vSphere 6 vCenter Virtual Server Appliance (VCSA).

What does VMCA do?

• issues certificates for
  • VMware solution users
  • machine certificates for machines on which services are running
  • ESXi host certificates when adding the ESXi host to vCenter Server
• you don’t have to use VMCA as the certificate authority and certificate signer

What does VMware Endpoint Certificate Store (VECS) do?

• a local (client-side) repository for certificates, private keys, and other certificate information
• you must use VECS to store all vCenter certificates and keys
• ESXi certificates are stored locally on each host and not in VECS

Certificate Management

• vSphere 6 ships with a new Certificate Manager tool for vCenter for Windows and VCSA

Windows 10 Privacy Tools

There are many concerns about Windows 10 privacy since it is released. Now some tools are developed to block Microsoft from gathering the information. Here are the tools:

• W10Privacy
• Ashampoo AntiSpy for Windows 10

Keep Your Microsoft OneDrive Free Storage Before It Is Gone

Early November 2015, Microsoft announced the OneDrive storage plan change. In addition to removing the unlimited cloud storage for Office 365 consumer subscribers, they will also decrease the 15GB free storage to 5GB for all existing users in early 2016.

My personal OneDrive has 45GB free storage

• 15GB when signing up OneDrive (the current offer is 5GB)
• 15GB when signing up camera roll bonus (this offer is discontinued)
• 10GB as loyalty bonus (this offer is no longer available)

Under the November announcement, my free storage will be reduced to 5GB.

Now (as December 11, 2015) here is the good news - Microsoft changed their plan. It will let us keep the free storage if signing up here before January 31, 2016.

I am glad that Microsoft listen to customer feedback. If you use Microsoft OneDrive, sign up this offer now before it is gone.

Blogger Editor - Open Live Writer

Microsoft Windows Live Writer was my favorite editor for Blogger, as mentioned in Blogger Editor until it stopped working.

Today, Microsoft open-sourced the application as Open Live Writer. However, the version 0.5.0.0 I downloaded on Dec. 10, 2015 still does not work with Blogger authentication - the error message “The user name or password is incorrect. Please try again”. Many people have the same issue. The good news is “some people working on this”.

I am glad that Windows Live Writer is live again (kind of). I am looking forward to using Open Live Writer soon. In the meantime, Classeur or StackEdit is my Blogger editor.

Windows 10 Update KB 3122947 Error 0x80070643 Fix

One of my Windows 10 computers received the 0x80070643 error when installing KB 3122947 update. Here is the fix.

• Open Command Prompt (Admin)
• run dism /online /add-package /packagepath:C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\b0a5da1b24245bc4237166e09bae92da\windows10.0-kb3122947-x86.cab
  or dism /online /add-package /packagepath:C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\c4a1b8896ce9fbfea96c1ee6890d52a5\windows10.0-kb3122947-x64.cab
• Reboot

For more info see Mysterious Windows 10 version 1511 patch KB 3122947 fails to install