Should you pay a premium price for a bigger internal SSD?

You could save hundreds of $/€/£ buying a Mac with a smaller internal SSD. Is that a good economy, or will you come to regret it? Here are the pros and cons. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Apple has just released updates to XProtect and XProtect Remediator

Apple has just released updates to XProtect for all supported versions of macOS, bringing it to version 5289, […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

LogUI build 25 replaced by build 27

Improves Signposts feature and makes a couple of minor corrections. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Reading Visual Art: 195 Hats with meaning

The origin of the conical hat worn by Jews. and that worn by dunces. Cavaliers and Roundheads, crowns and mitres, the cardinal's red biretta, and Dante's chaperon. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

LogUI build 25 can select and copy log entries, and more

Supports both continuous and discontinuous selection of log entries, copy their text contents, Signposts, and smart window and file naming. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Changing Paintings: 60 The sack of Troy

Alax and Ulysses vie for the arms and armour of the dead Achilles. The Greeks enter Troy and start its destruction, killing King Priam and the infant Astyanax. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 297

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 297. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Can […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Managing privacy-protected devices

Control access from apps to devices like cameras and microphones. How to check the reason for their request, and whether they have entitlement to do so. How to remove apps from the privacy lists, and more. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Two Duchesses: Paintings of the Duchess of Ferrara

Femme fatale, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, she was the lover of Isabella d'Este's husband, and inspired portraits until Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Last Week on My Mac: Death, taxes and macOS updates

Users should be given a third option to defer updating further, as well as doing it now or later tonight. Does the DAS scheduling and dispatch system rely on security through obscurity too? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Two Duchesses: Paintings of the Duchess of Mantua

After an excellent education, she married the Duke of Mantua, and started collecting paintings, most commissioned in great detail for her private study. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Saturday Mac riddles 297

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


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

A brief history of keychains

From their origin with an email engine in 1993, to the addition of the more secure Data Protection keychain supporting passkeys and much more. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Urban Revolutionaries: 6 Demon drink

The evils of absinthe in paintings by Degas, Raffaëlli, Jean Béraud, and other booze like Bocks by Manet and Friant, with artists also drinking heavily. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Friday Magic: How to make disk space unpurgeable

When it started up after its macOS update, available space on its internal SSD had shot from about 160 GB to nearly 400 GB. Where had all my files gone? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Interiors by Design: Fireplace

Fireplaces and hearths, from a small town in the country, a dozing fisherman's wife copied by Vincent van Gogh, a fire in a studio, and those in suburban homes. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

How your Mac can update macOS when you don’t want it to

I had left my Mac running near midnight. Next morning it had shut down in the middle of an unwanted macOS update. Here's how macOS went against my express settings. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS

Apple has just released an update to XProtect for all supported versions of macOS, bringing it to version […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Reading Visual Art: 194 Altars, later

Raphael's Disputa, Joan of Arc, the coronation of Charlemagne, a knight dedicating his service in a country church, a shockingly naked St Elizabeth, and a Last Supper painted in Norway. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Introducing LogUI: an experimental log browser

This first experimental version gets log extracts direct, rather than using the log command tool, and has a SwiftUI front end, but requires macOS 14.6 or later. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Reading Visual Art: 193 Altars, early

Classical Greek and Roman altars, a witches' altar from a sabbath, the altar to Bel or Baal, a mysterious sacred grove, and a Greek mathematician kidnapped and killed by a Christian mob. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Speed or security? Speculative execution in Apple silicon

How Apple's new CPU cores can guess which code to run, and which data to load from memory. How those speculative techniques can be exploited, and should we be worried? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Changing Paintings: 59 The death of Achilles

Neptune hates Achilles, so gets Apollo to help Paris mortally wound Achilles with an arrow in the tendon of his ankle. And how that came to be his vulnerable point. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 296

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 296. Here are my solutions to them. 1: No […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Gaining access to privacy-protected folders

The difference between consent and intent, why an app adds itself to Settings, and when you should add it to Full Disk Access. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Paintings from Ukraine 2

Paintings from the end of the 19th century into the 20th, by Pymonenko, Murashko, Malevich, Bohomazov, Boichuk, Ekster and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Last Week on My Mac: The sinkhole under macOS

Permissions, privacy and security protections can conspire to prevent us from accessing our own files. They aren't integrated, consistent or documented, and badly need improvement. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Paintings from Ukraine 1

A sketchy history from Soshenko and Shevchenko in the early 19th century, to Kuznetsov and Pokhitonov at the end, with 3 famous expatriates. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Saturday Mac riddles 296

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: No amateur […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

A brief history of scripting the Mac

Includes HyperTalk, UserTalk, AppleScript, Prograph, shell scripts, Automator, Swift Playgrounds and Shortcuts, from 1987 to the present. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Urban Revolutionaries: 5 On strike

From 1880 workers' strikes brought violence and strife to industrial regions throughout Europe, in the struggle for rights and justice. Shown here in contemporary paintings. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

How external bootable disks work with Apple silicon Macs

Working with external bootable disks: how to create and add them, ownership and LocalPolicy, how that can be changed, and what happens with errors and failure. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Interiors by Design: Carpets

Although of ancient origin, it took 7 centuries for Europeans to use them to cover the floor. They can be exotic in chinoiserie, luxuriant, worn and threadbare, or vibrant. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Permissions, privacy and security: who’s in control?

Permissions, ACLs, TCC's privacy controls, SIP and app sandboxes. What they are, and how you can control them to access and maintain your files. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Reading Visual Art: 192 Curtains as a device

Curtains around 4-poster beds, revealing hidden opinions, framing a cameo landscape, showing time and place, and in a trompe l'oeil still life. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

How to deal with a kernel panic

Your Mac unexpectedly restarts, and a little after logging in you see a Panic Alert. Before sending that to Apple, save a copy and follow this guidance, including how to read a panic log. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Reading Visual Art: 191 Curtains of concealment and revelation

Curtains in Raphael's remarkable trompe l'oeil, concealing a nude, opened by the peeping tom, revealing a lost lover, and as separator between players and spectators. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Getting more from Recovery on Apple silicon Macs

Going deeper into Recovery mode, by setting the correct keyboard, sharing the Data volume with another Mac, using full features in Disk Utility and Safari, and avoiding repairing Home permissions. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Changing Paintings: 58 A wedding ruined by centaurs

The start of fighting in the Trojan War, how the prettiest girl in Thessaly became its toughest warrior, and the wedding feast that became all-out war. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 295

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 295. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Visible […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

What can’t you do on Apple silicon Macs, and what should you avoid?

Running older macOS, support for Intel apps and kernel extensions, booting from an external drive, Boot Camp and Windows support, cloning, and startup key combinations. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Paintings of Saint-Tropez: Colour, boats and bathers 2

Paintings by Paul Signac, Maximilien Luce, and Pierre Bonnard showing fishing boats, trees and bathers near this smalll fishing village on the Mediterranean coast. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Last Week on My Mac: What did 15.3.1 fix?

Important security fixes, but no published CVE entries, according to Apple. But digging deeper was also unhelpful. Could it be GoFetch, or SLAP and FLOP? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Paintings of Saint-Tropez: Colour, boats and bathers 1

A small fishing village that drew several major painters from about 1892, where they depicted its boats, warmth, trees, light and bathers. From Paul Signac on. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Saturday Mac riddles 295

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


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

A brief history of bundles

From the resource forks of Classic apps, to versioned and new-style bundles in 2001, document packages, then the incorporation of signatures and notarization tickets. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Urban Revolutionaries: 4 Coal and construction

Meunier's paintings of the Borinage in Belgium, Breitner's construction in Amsterdam in the late 19th century, and Maximilen Luce's of Paris in the early 20th century. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Watch your background: automatic Time Machine backups

How DAS gathers its budgets and loads lists of activities. When rescoring permits, it then dispatches the process to initiate backup. Re-scheduling has changed in Sequoia, as shown here. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago