Arthur: Summary and Contents

From his conception in an adulterous deception arranged by Merlin, and drawing a sword from an anvil, to his death following wounds inflicted by the dying Mordred. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 234

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 234. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Tough back problem succeeded the floppy. Click for a solution hard disk Tough (hard) back proble… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

What is changing in Mac firmware?

Six years ago, iBridge came for Macs with T2 chips, then 3 years ago Apple silicon models got iBoot instead of EFI. Now EFI support is dwindling fast. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Heretic or heroine of France? Joan of Arc, the martyr

The life and death of Joan of Arc painted by Paul Delaroche, Ingres, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Annie Swynnerton, and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Last Week on My Mac: Are your apps built to get the best from Apple silicon?

There’s more to getting best performance and energy efficiency on Apple silicon. These vary greatly depending on how apps are coded, as shown here. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Heretic or heroine of France? Joan of Arc, the call

The visions of Joan of Arc painted by Jules Bastien-Lepage, the American Gari Melchers, Odilon Redon, John William Waterhouse, and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Saturday Mac riddles 234

Here are this weekend’s riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: Tough back problem succeeded the floppy. 2: Ice or semiconductor road to house replaced 1. 3:… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Why apps need to Accelerate

If Apple offered to do much of the hard work of coding your app for you for free, and to optimise it for different Mac hardware, how could you refuse? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Paintings of 1923: 1 Narrative

Franz von Stuck, Lovis Corinth, Jacek Malczewski, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Albin Egger-Lienz, and Edmond Aman-Jean tell stories from 1923. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

How you can now verify iMessage contacts

New with Sonoma 14.2, iOS 17.2, and watchOS 10.2 is a service that enables you to verify and put more trust in those you message. Full details here. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

High: Huts

Mountain huts, refuges, and inns by Calame, Hodler. Rosa Bonheur and others, with a couple of photos of truly awe-inspiring huts in the Alps. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Serious bugs remain in macOS Sonoma 14.2

Two memory leaks in the Finder, inability to change password for encrypted sparse bundles, and a crashing bug in Contacts. Detailed and reported to Apple. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Reading visual art: 96 Ghosts B

More literary ghosts from the tales of Ossian, Charles Dickens’ novella ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Arthur Rackham, and a watercolour by Lizzie Siddal. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Finding and evaluating AMX co-processors in Apple silicon chips

How to compare an undocumented if not secret co-processor? Using different tests that use very high power, and can result in strange patterns of core allocation. So how does the M3 Pro fare here? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Reading visual art: 95 Ghosts A

Henry Fuseli, Ary Scheffer, Botticelli, William Blake and other artists paint the ghosts in Shakespeare's plays and other literary sources. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Evaluating the M3 Pro: Summary

Comparison with M1 variants, energy use with comparison between M3 Pro and Max, virtualisation, Game Mode, vector processing and matrix co-processing – all in summary. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

What has changed in macOS Sonoma 14.2?

macOS Sonoma 14.2 is a substantial update, with extensive fixes to bugs and enhancements to apps and services. It’s also the first universal version of macOS since the release of the M3 Macs … | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Apple has released Sonoma 14.2, and security updates for Ventura and Monterey

Apple has just released updates to bring macOS Sonoma to version 14.2, together with security updates bringing Ventura to 13.6.3 and Monterey to 12.7.2. The update for Sonoma is about 2.7 GB for Ap… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Arthur: 14 Deaths of Guenevere and Lancelot

Guenevere becomes a nun, Lancelot finds and she refuses to see him again. After her death, he buries her with Arthur, then dies himself. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 233

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 233. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Intense burning puts performance in the first. Click for a solution Firestorm Intense burning (a… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Does iCloud+ Private Relay reduce network responsiveness?

Do you think that iCloud+ Private Relay is reducing network responsiveness or performance? These results may surprise you. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

End of the Earth: paintings of the far west of Brittany 2

A nocturne by Luce, Hokusai-inspired waves by Lacomb the Nabi sculptor, Moret’s coastal views, and two portraits by Elizabeth Nourse. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Last Week on My Mac: A new vision for macOS utilities

When was the last time a WWDC session focussed on a utility, or one was singled out in features for the next macOS? It’s time to reimagine the utilities in macOS. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

End of the Earth: paintings of the far west of Brittany 1

Its weather is often wild, with mountainous seas. Views of its rugged coast, seaweed harvesting, and religious pardons. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Saturday Mac riddles 233

Here are this weekend’s riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: Intense burning puts performance in the first. 2: Frozen landslide is faster in the second. 3… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Where have the network tools gone?

A few years ago, there were 3 tools for diagnosing network problems: Network Utility (gone in Big Sur), Wireless Diagnostics, and Network Diagnostics (also gone). And what can networkQuality tell you about Private Relay? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Deianeira’s abduction, the revenge of Nessus, and the point of view

A simple story of an unsuccessful attempt at abduction and rape becomes a compositional struggle. It also results in the death of Heracles. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

How AppleCare has changed with AppleCare+

AppleCare+ combines extended warranty on defects with insurance cover for accidental damage. This explains the benefits now offered for Macs. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Apple has just released an update to XProtect Remediator

Apple has just released an update to XProtect Remediator security software for Catalina or later, bringing it to version 120. The previous release was version 118. Apple doesn’t release infor… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Apple has just released an update to XProtect

Apple has just released an update to XProtect for all versions of macOS from El Capitan or so, bringing it to version 2176. Apple doesn’t release information about what security issues this u… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

High: Fauna

The hills are alive with eagles, black grouse, sheep, highland cattle, deer, and even the occasional goat. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Evaluating M3 Pro CPU cores: 5 Quest for the AMX

Assessing throughput using tests of fast Fourier transforms and sparse Cholesky factorisation from the Accelerate library. Is there an AMX there? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Reading visual art: 94 Time of day

What time of day is it? How cast shadows can help or confound, a painting showing Donati’s comet that can be timed precisely, and difficulties with indoor paintings. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Time Machine in Sonoma: how to work around its weaknesses

How to back up all your iCloud Drive documents, minimise snapshot size, keep integrity checks in important files, and more. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Reading visual art: 93 Dawn or dusk?

The sun is near the horizon, but is it dawn or dusk? How to tell them apart without trusting a title that may not be the artist's. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Evaluating M3 Pro CPU cores: 4 Vector processing in NEON

Differences in vector processing performance between the M1 Max and M3 Pro, and in their use of power. Their frequency control is more complex. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Arthur: 13 The death of Arthur

The dying king is taken on a barge with Morgan le Fay, two other queens, and Nyneve, to Avalon. Later his body is returned for burial in a chapel by the lake. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 232

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 232. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Fitter opens packages and puts them in place. Click for a solution Installer Fitter (an installe… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Spundle 1.8 adds support for Case-sensitive APFS sparse bundles

New version creates and maintains Case-sensitive APFS sparse bundles in addition to its previous range of formats. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

macOS Sonoma is setting records for update size

Big Sur ended up with a total of 50 GB of updates on Apple silicon Macs. While Ventura did much better, its smallest update was still just under 2 GB. Now Sonoma is doing much better. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Rescued from the sea-monster: Paintings of Angelica

How Ruggiero comes to the aid of Angelica, who has been kidnapped and left chained so can form the orc’s next meal. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Last Week on My Mac: Beware of the two Sonomas

macOS Sonoma is currently forked into two: one series of builds for M3 Macs, and another for all the rest. How does that affect the user? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Rescued from the sea-monster: Paintings of Andromeda

How Perseus comes to the aid of Andromeda as she’s left chained to a rock, awaiting her fate as the next meal of Cetus the sea-monster. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Saturday Mac riddles 232

Here are this weekend’s riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: Fitter opens packages and puts them in place. 2: Parcel for the fitter to install. 3: Quick u… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

RIP RSR?

After two unscheduled updates to Sonoma, neither has been released as an RSR. Has Apple given up with its new lightweight macOS updates? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Pietro Perugino

He trained alongside Leonardo, painted frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and taught the young Raphael, as well as being a great painter. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Evaluating M3 Pro CPU cores: 3 Special CPU modes

Examines two special core allocation modes: for the virtual cores in a macOS VM, and in Sonoma’s new Game Mode. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago

Apple has released macOS Sonoma 14.1.2

Apple has just released a security update for macOS Sonoma, bringing it to version 14.1.2. The download is about 845 MB in size for Apple silicon Macs. Apple states that this “provides import… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 year ago