What to do when offered a new FileVault Recovery Key

You've just updated to 14.4 or 14.4.1 and are prompted to set up a new Recovery Key for FileVault. What do you do next, and how should you check the key? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 hours ago

Reading visual art: 125 Frogs in other stories

The fairy tale of the Frog Prince, the fable of The Frogs who Demand a King, frogs at the Fall of Man, and dangling from a kite tail above Strasbourg. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 23 hours ago

Happy birthday APFS, 7 years old today

Introduced in iOS 10.3 on 27 March 2017, then in macOS 10.13 six months later. It ups and downs, and where it still has further to go. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

Apple has just released an update to XProtect

Apple has just released the now-regular weekly update to XProtect for all versions of macOS from El Capitan […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

Reading visual art: 124 Frogs and toads in myth

The Lycians turned into frogs when they refused the goddess Latona a drink of water, and the sorceress Medea accompanied by toads. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 day ago

Keeping cool: physics

With the heat of summer drawing near, it's time to consider keeping our Macs and their peripherals cool. Covers thermal paste, heat sinks, fans and more. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 2 days ago

Apple has released macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 and Ventura 13.6.6 updates

Apple has released updates to bring macOS Sonoma to version 14.4.1, build 23E224, and that for Ventura 13.6.6. […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 2 days ago

Changing Paintings: 12 Death of Semele and Jupiter’s surrogate pregnancy

One of Ovid's weirdest tales, in which Juno convinces the pregnant Semele to demand her lover Jupiter reveals himself, resulting in her death, caesarian section and his surrogate pregnancy. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 2 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 248

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 248. Here are my solutions to them. 1: With […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

APFS: Directories and names

B+trees, directory records, directory and file names and Unicode normalisation, and whatever happened to the promise of fast directory sizing? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

Pushing back landscape paintings 2

Repoussoir through windows, doors, then invading the middle of the painting with Corot and Pissarro, before Cézanne inverted it altogether. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 3 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Attack of the Clones

We're almost unaware of clone files, and how they've changed macOS. But look at most documents that have been saved more than once, and you'll see they've now be cloned. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 days ago

Pushing back landscape paintings 1

How repoussoir originated in figurative painting, and came to become a popular compositional technique for landscapes from Giorgione to Turner. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 4 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 248

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


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

Is Apple lagging in AI?

Has Apple fallen behind in ML and AI? Why hasn't it got its own Large Language Model, and how can it possibly catch up now? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

A to Z of Landscapes: Flowers

Landscape paintings by Daubigny, Sisley, Berkos, Astrup, Pissarro, Julian Onderdonk, Granville Redmond, Théo van Rysselberghe and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 5 days ago

Accents or repeat: how is your keyboard configured?

What happens when you press and hold the e key? Does it repeat, or do you see a window offering accented versions? Do you know you can change that? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

Versatility: a new drag-and-drop utility to archive and unarchive file versions

Convert a document into a folder containing all its saved versions, and unarchive that folder back into a document with all those saved versions. All using drag-and-drop. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

Sea of Mists: Carl Gustav Carus 1826-50

From 1925, he moved away from themes common with his teacher Friedrich and developed his own Gothic Romanticism. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 6 days ago

How to recover Recovery

There's a problem with your Mac, so you try starting it up in Recovery. But that doesn't work. What should try next? Intel and Apple silicon Macs are then quite different. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 7 days ago

Reading visual art: 123 Vanitas in more recent times

After 1850, there was a resurgence of expressions of the emptiness and futility of earthly life, with symbols of death and transience of ephemeral objects. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 7 days ago

APFS: Files and clones

Understanding how APFS works: inodes, attributes, file extents, extended attributes, and how they change with editing and cloning. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Apple has just released updates to XProtect and XProtect Remediator

Apple has just released updates to XProtect Remediator security software (Catalina or later), bringing it to version 129, […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Reading visual art: 122 Vanitas in the 17th century

Originating in the Northern Renaissance, these paintings expressed feelings of emptiness, and the futility of earthly life. Examples of these elaborate allegories. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 8 days ago

Sonoma’s lost versions bug: what it is and how to safeguard versions

How to reproduce this serious bug in Sonoma 14.4, and how to archive all the versions of a file or document so they can't get destroyed. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Is there a problem in Sonoma’s universalaccessd?

Have noticed brief periods of high CPU for universalaccessd in Sonoma? Do you know what com.apple.axserver is and why it can't be found? Can you help with this puzzle? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Serious bug in Sonoma 14.4 will destroy saved versions in iCloud Drive

Do you use saved versions in documents? If a file is evicted by you or macOS, then all saved versions will now be removed, and lost forever. How to work around this serious bug. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Changing Paintings: 11 Actaeon changed into a stag

The grandson of the founder of Thebes happens into Diana's sacred wood when out hunting, and sees the goddess naked. She changes him into a stag, with fatal consequences. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 9 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 247

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 247. Here are my solutions to them. 1: A […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

How iCloud Drive works in macOS Sonoma

Step by step through moving to iCloud Drive, eviction to a dataless file, materialisation of local data, editing and syncing with iCloud Drive. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

Gambling in paint: Virtue

Gambling among soldiers and young boys, games of Pharo, l'hombre, poker, and the Casino at Monte-Carlo. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 10 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Solo or CoreDuet?

How do the SMC and CoreDuet manage the systems in your Mac, and should you fiddle with them? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 11 days ago

Gambling in paint: Vice

Gambling as a sure road to Hell, with Bosch, Caravaggio, Georges de la Tour, Hogarth, Géricault, Courbet, Rossetti, and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 11 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 247

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


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

What makes a disk bootable?

Simply having a boot volume group with a System snapshot in it won't get your Mac to start up from that disk, particularly if it's an Apple silicon model. Some details. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

A to Z of Landscapes: Earth

Pontoise by Pissarro, Paul Nash's Berkshire Downs, Rosa Bonheur's teams of oxen ploughing, and Grant Wood's Iowa prairie. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 12 days ago

Apple silicon: 6 Security

Secure Boot and its 5 stages, the SSV, support for external bootable disks, the SEP, Recovery, and lightweight virtualisation. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 days ago

Sea of Mists: Carl Gustav Carus 1816-25

A polymath who was professor of obstetrics, he became Friedrich’s pupil in 1814. They shared locations and the use of Rückenfiguren. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 13 days ago

Ovid’s myths of macOS: password entry dialogs and the death of Semele

Killed by Jupiter’s thunderbolts when she insisted he proved his identity, this myth is a reminder that making something more secure isn’t always a good answer. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 14 days ago

Reading visual art: 121 Rainbows landscape

In landscapes by Rubens, Constable, Ford Madox Brown, Frederic Edwin Church, Millet, Pissarro, Breton, and Prendergast. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 14 days ago

Desktop & Documents Folders in iCloud Drive

Ever been tempted to turn on this feature, or maybe you use it already? Do you know how it works, and whether it preserves your files fully? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days 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 2189. Apple doesn’t release information about what security issues this u… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

Reading visual art: 120 Rainbows narrative

The primary attribute of Iris, with the soothing song of Amphitrite, bearing the Norse deities to Valhalla, the sign of God's covenant after the Flood, and at the Last Judgement. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 15 days ago

Manage your Mac’s battery for endurance and lifespan

History from Mac Portable's led acid to the latest lithium-polymer. But how should you manage your Mac's battery? What about when in storage or heat? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 16 days ago

Changing Paintings: 10 Cadmus and the founding of Thebes

Europa’s brother Cadmus is told to found a new city wherever a cow leads him. After killing a man-eating dragon, he sows its teeth in the soil. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 16 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 246

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 246. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Once a Latin American dance on 445, it’s a year older than the Mac, and now the shared sta… | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago

iCloud Drive in Sonoma: Optimise Mac Storage or not?

It lets you evict files so their data is only held in iCloud Drive, freeing up local space. But would to get into storage debt as a results? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago

Painting the circus: performers and melancholy

Degas' Miss La La, a clown feeding a baby, cruelty to performers and animals, the misery of the Saltimbanques, and the melancholy of clowns. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 17 days ago