How macOS now tracks the provenance of apps

Which extended attributes are attached to downloaded archives and apps? How do they fit in with provenance tracking? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Ukrainian Painters: Arnold Lakhovskyi

He studied in Odesa, Munich and St Petersburg, then painted in Russia until he emigrated to Paris in 1925, and on to New York in 1933. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

What causes App Translocation?

If you thought that App Translocation only happens to apps left in their original folders and not moved, and doesn’t happen after first run, this could come as a surprise. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Trojan Epics: 11 Paris killed and the Trojan Horse

Ajax goes mad, then falls on his sword. The Greeks are told they need their master-archer and Achilles’ son, but still have to come up with a way of entering the city of Troy. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 202

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 202. Here are my solutions to them. 1: For three years this SoC was a bridge to the arm. Click for a solution T2 chip For three years (… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

SystHist 1.18 now reports RSRs

Full listings of each version of macOS and update installed on that Mac, now includes RSRs. A mine of information. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

A detailed record of macOS and its security updates

Major macOS releases from Sierra to Ventura, with full details of each release and security update. Also updates to XProtect, MRT and Gatekeeper. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Paintings of Forbidden Love: Pyramus and Thisbe

The model for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, this couple committed suicide when each presumed they had brought the death of the other. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Last Week on My Mac: All in the numbers

We should have expected Apple to remain silent about what the RSR does. But ruining its own clean and logical version numbering system was unexpected. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Paintings of Forbidden Love: Hero and Leander

Byron, no stranger to forbidden love, swam across the Dardanelles in 1810, retracing the strokes of the legendary Leander who died trying to reach his lover Hero. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Saturday Mac riddles 202

Here are this weekend’s riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: For three years this SoC was a bridge to the arm. 2: This cat came with the first meeting poi… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Did that update just break something? How bad updates are getting less likely

With the sealed system and Cryptexes, macOS updates are less likely to cause problems. As RSRs are easy to uninstall, it's simple to test whether they're the cause. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Hard reality: 3 Cast shadows in figurative painting

Leonardo da Vinci studied different types of shade and shadow, but recommended painters not to depict cast shadows in their paintings. This explains why. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Is this the end for eficheck and non-T2 Intel Macs?

In just over a month, Apple is expected to announce macOS 14. How many Intel Macs without T2 chips are likely to be supported? What about their firmware? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Reading visual art: 54 Music B

More paintings of music, from the Aesthetic watercolour of Marie Spartali Stillman to folk dance, and Vuillard's friends playing in his apartment. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

COW and clones: how they save space and SSD wear

How does copy on write work, and how do clones grow apart? What effect do they have on the use of space and performance? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Reading visual art: 53 Music A

Evoking music from a painting is a serious challenge, yet many artists have tried it. See if any of these work for you. From Lavinia Fontana to Degas. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Safe mode, caches and CacheDelete

What does Safe mode do to all those service caches managed by CacheDelete? Does it still check your boot disk too? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Apple has just released an update to XProtect Remediator

Apple has just released an update to XProtect Remediator security software for Macs running Catalina or later, bringing it to version 97. This should supersede both versions 95 and 96, depending on… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

LockRattler 4.37 fixes a crashing bug

When run on Intel Macs without a T2 chip in Ventura 13.3.1, LockRattler may crash because of a bug in macOS. This update fixes it. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Ukrainian Painters: Serhii Svitoslavskyi

A prolific landscape painter who taught key members of the avant garde. He was also a founding supporter of Kyiv Zoo. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

What is a Rapid Security Response (RSR)?

Intended to be lightweight, timely and quick to install, the first RSR has now been provided for Ventura. Did you know you can also uninstall it easily? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Apple has just released the first Rapid Security Response for Ventura

Apple has just released the first of its new Rapid Security Responses (RSRs) for macOS 13.3.1 Ventura. This is indicated as macOS Rapid Security Response 13.3.1 (a), and is just just over 300 MB to… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Trojan Epics: 10 The death of Achilles

First, Achilles kills Penthesileia, an Amazon, whose great beauty fills him with remorse. Then come Memnon, who proves Achilles’ undoing by Paris’s arrow. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 201

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 201. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Show in the atelier that vanished for 18 years until 2022. Click for a solution Macintosh Studio… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

SilentKnight 2.5 and XProCheck 1.5 are better focussed

These now analyse log reports from XProtect Remediator more robustly, and are more discerning in ranking them, so clearer to use. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Into the Arctic: A celebration of the paintings of William Bradford 2

In 1869 he sailed on board 'Panther' on an expedition to Greenland and the Arctic. Among his subsequent commissioned paintings was one for Queen Victoria. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Last Week on My Mac: Secret security

An update users didn’t know about might have installed a security tool they don’t know about, whose reports they can’t see. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Into the Arctic: A celebration of the paintings of William Bradford 1

In the 1850s and 60s he was a successful marine artist, working in whaling ports such as Fairhaven, before moving to Boston. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Saturday Mac riddles 201

Here are this weekend’s riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: Show in the atelier that vanished for 18 years until 2022. 2: Exhibition for movies until str… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Coonecting to the Internet via a phone 21 years ago

Follow along as we connect to the Internet 21 years ago in Mac OS X 10.2, using a Bluetooth dongle and a mobile phone, at 28.8 Kbps. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Hard reality: 2 Shade and shadow

Explaining shade, attached and cast shadows seen in paintings. While the first two have been generally painted faithfully, cast shadows are more complicated. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

APFS hard links, symlinks, aliases and clone files: a summary

Similarities and differences, how to make each in the Finder and Terminal, how much space they use, and how they work in APFS. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Apple has just released an update to XProtect Remediator

Apple has just released an update to XProtect Remediator security software for Macs running Catalina or later, bringing it to version 96. Apple doesn’t release information about what security… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Reading visual art: 52 The capital crime of cross-dressing

One of the charges leading to Joan of Arc being burned at the stake was that she cross-dressed in male military clothing. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Where does macOS get its volume free space figures from?

After studying thousand of log entries in less than 2 seconds, this is how macOS updates its values for purgeable and available space. But who uses them? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Reading visual art: 51 Hercules and changing gender

The curious myth of the swashbuckling hero Hercules dressed in women's clothing and forced to serve Queen Omphale. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Freeing space on your boot disk

Free that space before macOS has to purge it for you. Using housekeeping, moving Documents and media libraries, but not relocating Home folders. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Ukrainian Painters: Mykola Burachek

Trained in Kyiv, Kraków, and with Matisse in Paris, he is best known for his virtuoso Impressionist oil sketches. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Ventura 13.3.1 can’t change the password of sparse bundles

hdiutil chpass, the only means of changing passwords for sparse bundles, doesn’t work in macOS Ventura 13.3.1. The workaround requires a VM and 13.1. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Trojan Epics: 9 The death of Hector

The river runs red with the blood of Trojans before Achilles gets his chance to fight Hector, and kills him. Then he dishonours the Trojan's body. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 200

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 200. Here are my solutions to them. 1: The first, for the rest of us, but needed to gain weight quickly. Click for a solution Macintosh… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

How Ventura space management tracks changes

Deleting two large files from a volume triggered the updating of figures for purgeable and available space within 9 seconds. Yet 6 minutes later, the Finder didn’t show those updated figures. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Paintings of the flatlands of England 2

John Crome, a quiet innovator and founder of the Norwich School, Frederick Sandys, Thomas Girtin and others in Norfolk and Lincoln. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Last Week on My Mac: When the numbers don’t add up

One volume has 60 GB of purgeable space, giving 295 GB available; the other has only 15 GB purgeable, so 250 GB available. How can they be in the same container? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Paintings of the flatlands of England 1

From Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, via the wooded countryside of Gainsborough and Constable, to the coast of Philip Wilson Steer. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Saturday Mac riddles 200

Almost four years ago, on 29 June 2019, I posted my first Saturday Mac Riddles. To mark their 200th edition, here are this weekend’s four special riddles to entertain you through family time,… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago

Should you remove duplicate files?

Save space on your storage and backups by removing all copies. But does it work if they’re APFS clone files? And does that housekeeping utility detect clones for you? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 years ago