In the shadow: Caravaggio

He changed the emphasis of painting to use darkness, shade and shadows. Examples include Calling of St Matthew, Conversion of St Paul, and Supper at Emmaus. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 14 hours ago

Why can’t Preview open that PDF?

Preview commonly refuses to open PDF documents. This explains why, and how you can work around its bizarre errors and warnings. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 19 hours ago

Portraits of trees: Peter Paul Rubens

Collaborated with Jan Brueghel the Elder in early paintings, created his own landscapes from 1625, and a wonderful series of landscapes during his retirement in 1635-1640. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

Crossing the Golden Gate, Intel support, and an update to SystHist

Golden Gate is bringing more than AI. Here are some of the improvements already detailed, some cautions to be aware of, notes on running GG in a VM, Intel support info, and an app update. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

Hero or hooligan: Jason and the Golden Fleece

Brought up by the centaur Chiron, he challenged Pelias for his throne, so was sent to get the Golden Fleece with his Argonauts. He married Hypsipyle and they had twins before he abandoned her and promised to marry Medea in return for her help. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 2 days ago

Reading the Finder’s Get Info dialog

How this expresses file sizes, which data it includes, the difference between KB and KiB, how to view more of a file's metadata, and more. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 2 days ago

In memoriam Mary Cassatt: 2, 1880-81

A quick self-portrait, two of her friend at that theatre, two children playing on a beach, and her first prints made using Soft Ground etching. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 363

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 363. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Apparition in […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

How does Lockdown Mode affect location data?

Does Lockdown Mode stop writing location metadata to all new images captured by the camera, or does it merely remove it from those photos that are shared? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

Elihu Vedder’s symbolism and stories: 1885-1913

More myth and Symbolism, with the Pleiades, Fates, and Fortuna, followed by large murals and a mosaic in the Library of Congress. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: What’s in a name?

Apple is addicted to naming features and subsystems in its operating systems, and has named each major version of Mac OS X since Cheetah. Is it seriously intending to leave macOS 27 without a name? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 days ago

Elihu Vedder’s symbolism and stories: 1863-1884

Born and brought up in New York City, he trained in Paris then travelled to Italy. He painted tales from the 1001 Nights, and in 1870 one of the earliest symbolist images by an American artist. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 363

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: Apparition in […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

Explainer: Getting a location

Without GPS and cellular connections in iPhones, Macs have a more limited choice of methods for estimating their location. Most important and accurate information comes from nearby Wi-Fi access points. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

In the shadow: Introduction

The story of Dibutades who painted the outline of her boyfriend's shadow, leading to early struggles with the optics of cast shadows, their use as cues to depth and shape, and appearance in landscapes. Paintings of shadow play. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

Get more from Get Info and the Finder’s contextual menu

How to find and use the Finder's Get Info sibling, the Inspector, how to make exact duplicates, a free slideshow without Keynote, and an Easter Egg. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

Portraits of trees: history to 1630

Piero della Francesca's common walnut tree, several types by Giorgione, mixed woodland by Albrecht Altdorfer, wonderful examples from the Brueghels, and two plein air oil sketches by Velázquez. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 7 days ago

Stop your photos revealing your location

Presents various ways to prevent location data from being revealed to others when sharing or using images created on an iPhone and similar. This is not just for privacy, but to ensure your safety. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 7 days ago

Medium and message: Contents

Full table of contents, from introduction and watercolour to vast canvases and Edgar Degas. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Have you saved thousands of versions? Versatility 1.2 might be what you need

My scratch writing file turned out to have a total of 3,702 versions saved in the macOS database. Archiving them all required changes to Versatility, in this new version. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS

Apple has released its regular weekly update to XProtect for all versions of macOS, bringing it to version […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Hero or hooligan: Theseus’ later years

After feasting with Achelous, he got involved in the battle between Lapiths and centaurs. then struck disaster with incest, suicide and violent death, before abducting Helen, and being thrown from a cliff. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

BSD flags are incompatible with iCloud Drive

Eight BSD flags are available in APFS to lock files, hide them, and restrict them in other ways. None of them synced correctly in iCloud Drive, and four caused other problems. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Apple has released macOS Tahoe 26.5.1

Apple has just released a patch update to macOS Tahoe to bring it to version 26.5.1. This “addresses […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

In memoriam Mary Cassatt: 1, 1868-1880

One of the four great ladies of the Impressionist movement, she was born in Pennsylvania, then moved to train in Paris. She joined the Impressionists in 1877, and soon adopted the style in her painting. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 362

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 362. Here are my solutions to them. 1: From -12:00 […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

What Location Services do in macOS

Although included in Privacy & Security settings, it has nothing to do with TCC or tccutil, but is run largely by its own service locationd. This is what it does, and how to control it. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

Eclectic paintings of Joseph Stella: 2 European myths

In the early 1920s, he painted myths, then developed his near-Surrealist fantasies with fruit, flowers and birds. The spent much of the next decade back in Europe, before returning to settle in the Bronx. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 11 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Razzle and dazzle

macOS Tahoe is about to be replaced. After 8 months of improvements to rectify problems in its redesigned interface, what has changed, and is that sufficient to upgrade from Sequoia? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 11 days ago

Eclectic paintings of Joseph Stella: 1 American landscapes

He emigrated from Italy to the USA in 1896, where he was trained by William Merritt Chase in New York. He returned to Italy in 1909, adopted modern style, and returned to the US in 1912. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 362

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: From -12:00 […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

Protect files with the Locked or Immutable flag

How to use the Finder's Lock feature, and as the Immutable flag in Terminal. What its effects are, and how well it's retained. How iCloud Drive can't cope with it, and how you can use it in your own lightweight versioning system. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

Reading Visual Art: 252 Dragonfly

The devil's darning needles have had a bad press, and appear in just a few paintings. Here's a vanitas still life, a meal for chaffinches, and some stranger associations. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 days ago

What happens in the log when an app crashes as it starts up?

How to investigate an app that crashes when starting up, using log entries. Includes detailed instructions for one of the simplest adventures in the log, and a summary of code signature errors. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 days ago

Portraits of trees: Introduction

Humans have lived with trees since our origins, and trees feature in many paintings. This explains the importance of sketching them from life, and shows examples of different species and contrasting artists from Rubens and van Ruisdael to van Gogh and Cézanne. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 14 days ago

How to fix an app that crashes as it starts up

When a can only run for a moment, it might seem hard to work out why it crashes. Here are useful clues from the crash log and elsewhere to help you get the app running properly. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 14 days ago

Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS

Apple has released its regular weekly update to XProtect for all versions of macOS, bringing it to version […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

On Reflection: Conclusions and contents

Two groups of paintings: figures seen mostly in planar mirrors arranged vertically, and landscapes reflected by a horizontal water surface. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

Which tasks require mains power?

Some background tasks will only run when a laptop Mac is connected to mains (AC) power. This is also true for XProtect Remediator scans. What can you do to ensure these are still run? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

Medium and message: Vast canvases

Venetian walls were too damp for fresco, so their largest painting were made on stretched canvas. Those giants exceed 10 m (33 feet) in their longer dimension, with the largest 22 m (72 feet). | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 16 days ago

Online reference to external displays for Apple silicon Macs

Not sure which Retina quality displays you can use with your Apple silicon Mac? This site has all the answers and more. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 16 days ago

What’s in that phishing email?

When you need to check what's in a potential phishing email, run a locked-down virtual machine for safety, as explained here. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 16 days ago

Hero or hooligan: Theseus and Ariadne

To enable Theseus to retrace his steps out of the Labyrinth, Ariadne gives him a ball of thread, in return for which he promises to marry her. Once the couple escape to the island of Naxos, Theseus abandons her and sails back to Athens. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 361

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 361. Here are my solutions to them. 1: This second […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago

How to search document versions

Spotlight can't index the contents of document versions to make them searchable. How you can change that and save having to browse those versions when you need to recover old content. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago

Rubens’ Consequences of War

A painting commissioned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany towards the end of the 30 Years' War in Europe, details with its figures the suffering resulting from war, rather than the triumph of victory. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 18 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Intel Macs will be stuck with bugs

Spotlight fails to index the content of text files starting with odd characters like 'LG' and 'Draw', Although we understand this is caused by checking the file type using file(1), this suggests an explanation of why it should do that. And whether it will ever get fixed for Intel … | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 18 days ago

Rubens’ Peace and War

A painting for England's King Charles I to encourage him to make peace with Spain, left by Rubens in 1630. Its figures make clear the meaning of war, as explained here. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 19 days ago