William Merritt Chase and the independence of American painting 2

More of Chase's pupils, including early American Modernists John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, and Georgia O'Keeffe, and many others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 hours ago

Last Week on My Mac: The problems of structured data

Structured data is common and essential in many situations. Despite prolonged attempts to structure text semantically, most that is indexed and searched has mark-up removed, and uses the lowest common denominator, plain text. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 hours ago

William Merritt Chase and the independence of American painting 1

How the teaching of art, especially that of William Merritt Chase, brought artistic independence to the USA in the late 19th century, painters from Lydia Field Emmet to Louise Upton Brumback. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

Saturday Mac riddles 369

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


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

What makes a volume bootable?

All it required was the command bless, until that was undone by SIP. Since the T2's secure boot, it has become steadily more complex, and now is only really possible from the internal SSD. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

In memoriam Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov: 1, 1874-82

A prolific painter of Russian and Slavic folk tales. Includes a battle from the epic of Rus, Ivan Tsarevich the Firebird and the Grey Wolf, and Baba Yaga. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 2 days ago

SpotTest 1.3 identifies file types using file(1)

Adds file type identification to the Drop window, to help explain why Spotlight might misclassify a file and refuse to index its content as expected. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 2 days ago

Brushstrokes: Eugène Delacroix

Initially, he followed tradition, painting studies sketchily and finished work tight and with academic finish. He progressively presented more painterly works, becoming radical in his later years. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

Fix background activities that don’t run

Have your Time Machine backups become irregular, or stopped altogether? Are software updates infrequent, or malware scans rare? Find the answers here. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS

Apple has just released its first update to XProtect for all versions of macOS since early June, bringing […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 days ago

In the shadow: In front of the motif

You have a brief window of 30-60 minutes to capture the lighting, shade and shadows, when you're lucky. How practice and skill overcame one of the great challenges. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 days ago

Spotlight’s blind spot: JSON documents

One JSON text file consistently found a search term that another contained, but could never find. How do some documents get fully indexed, but others don't, and can't be searched? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 days ago

Portraits of trees: Thomas Gainsborough

Co-founder of the British school of landscape painting, he specialised in trees and woodland, and was greatly admired by John Constable. A selection of some of his finest paintings. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

Mints 1.22 now provides Locale information

This adds extensive information about the current locale and language settings, and is fully compatible with macOS 27. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

Hero or hooligan: Achilles’ final victory

Achilles returns in vengeance, his Myrmidons slaughtering many of the Trojans. He then kills Hector, the lead warrior of the Trojans, and finally succumbs to Paris's arrow. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 368

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 368. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Its actions […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

How does Spotlight rank search results?

Spotlight's search window provides 'AsYouTypeTopHit' ranked search, including a measure of recency, 3 opaque scores, related search, and hits across multiple search domains. Here's how it does that. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

Ohioan woman painter in Paris: Elizabeth Nourse, 2

Paintings of real, often poor, people in the Netherlands, the extreme west cost of Brittany, and foothills of the mountains. She also remained in Paris to help there during the First World War. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 7 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Spotlight’s eternal quest

From the outset, Spotlight has included websites and other items in ranked search, and local files listed exhaustively using filters. As we work with ever more data, ranking is becoming more important in our search methods. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 7 days ago

Ohioan woman painter in Paris: Elizabeth Nourse, 1

After training and a promising start to her career in Cincinnati, she moved to Paris, where she painted social realist portraits through northern Europe. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 368

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


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Explainer: Language and locale

How many sections in System Settings do you need to set your Mac's primary language? If you use language-specific Accessibility features, where are they? And where to find Apple's list of supported languages for the many features in macOS? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Great Ladies of Impressionism: Eva Gonzalès

Manet's only pupil, she exhibited regularly at the Salon, and never with the Impressionists, although her oil and pastel paintings are thoroughly Impressionist. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Is malware protection changing?

How long has it been since XProtect or XProtect Remediator were last updated? Could Apple be changing XProtect to use Apple silicon Macs better? Is there a better defence coming against ClickFix attacks? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Brushstrokes: Constable and Turner

Constable's painterly sketches were never intended to be seen by the public, but JMW Turner's later works are rich in marks, scratches and radical in appearance. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

How does the Spotlight window search?

Spotlight's search window is incremental and ranks search results across many domains. How this works in practice, and why it may not be ideal when searching for files. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

In the shadow: The problem of landscapes

More challenging than figurative paintings, landscapes painted in the studio could avoid shadows altogether, or adopt other solutions to look right even if not optically faithful. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 11 days ago

Core Spotlight in action: Notes and Contacts

Two apps using Core Spotlight, compared with respect to indexing of new entries, and searching. Quick tests to tell whether an app uses Core Spotlight, and what that brings. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 11 days ago

Portraits of trees: Cypress

The most characteristic tree of the north coast of the Mediterranean, it has long been associated with cemeteries and other places of grief. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

Should you try Golden Gate beta?

Do you fancy trying the public beta of Golden Gate when it's released in the next couple of weeks? This provides practical advice that could save you serious problems in doing so. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

Hero or hooligan: Achilles re-enters the war

With Achilles refusing to take any part in the war against Troy, defeat is looming for the Greeks. His close friend Patroclus drives the Trojans back, but is killed by Hector. Achilles is thrown into deep grief. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 367

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 367. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Launched in […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 days ago

Extend log analysis with Logistician 1.3

New version exports log statistics in CSV format for further analysis by Numbers, Excel and others. Here's a demonstration of what can be done, including a comparison with 'War and Peace'. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 days ago

Happy 250th birthday America 2

From John Singer Sargent's alligators near Miami, through Anna Althea Hills' fall in Orange County, to Grant Wood's Spring in the yard in Iowa. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 14 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Freshen up your documents

Long-running and often-saved documents can accumulate garbage, many saved versions, and could cause problems with Core Spotlight. Here's how to freshen them up again. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 14 days ago

Happy 250th birthday America 1

From Frederic Edwin Church at the Niagara Falls, through Childe Hassam's Rainy Day in Boston, to William Merritt Chase teaching outdoor painting on Long Island. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 367

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


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

Spotlight and Core Spotlight are different

Because Spotlight and Core Spotlight are so different, you can't tackle problems with corespotlightd using tools and techniques that work for Spotlight. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

Great Ladies of Impressionism: Marie Bracquemond

Fairy-tale princesses in their hennin conical hat, her half-sister modelling for Tissot, dinner with the Sisleys, Impressionist trees at dawn, white roses, and more. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 16 days ago

Sort order, collation and the Finder

When listing files by name, should 20test.text come before or after 200test.text? Which order is the more 'natural'? How this quickly becomes complex. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 16 days ago

Brushstrokes: Portraits 1760-1877

Brushstrokes and painterly marks in the portraits of Gainsborough, Reynolds, Angelica Kauffmann, Jacques-Louis David and James Tissot. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago

Keep your Mac cool using physics

How to optimise your Mac's cooling using conduction, convection and radiation. Use physical principles to cope with extreme summer temperatures, and how you can work more comfortably as well. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago

In the shadow: Diego Velázquez

His early paintings of roadside cafes used shadow with great effect, but most was removed from court portraits. Those in Las Meninas are controlled and elaborate. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 18 days ago

Get more from your Mac’s log by extending its duration

To check XProtect Remediator scans, you really need log records lasting at least 24 hours. What can you do if your Mac's only run for 6-8 hours? Here's how to use Logistician to help, and how you can cheat. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 18 days ago

Portraits of trees: Coppices and pollards

Coppice stools, cut to just above ground level, and pollards cut high enough to stop them from being damaged by cattle, were commonly used to produce supplies of timber. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 19 days ago

Logistician 1.2 fixes a couple of bugs

Fixes to occasional but persistent crashing bugs with no workaround. Recommended for all users. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 19 days ago

Firmware has become complicated again

Before the T2, EFI firmware in Intel Macs was complicated. Then simplicity arrived: all Macs running the current version of a supported version of macOS had the same firmware. Not any more they don't. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 19 days ago

Apple has just released macOS 26.5.2 Tahoe

Apple has just released the update to bring macOS Tahoe to version 26.5.2, but there are currently no […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 20 days ago