Jerusalem Delivered: Overview and contents

A brief overview of the plot of Tasso's epic, complete with links to all the articles, and a selection of the best of paintings. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 19 days ago

Finder comments, steganography and malware

Although easy to add to documents, Finder comments work strangely, and can prove fragile. They can also be used to conceal malicious code by steganography, but there are better options. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 19 days ago

The bicentenary of Frederic Edwin Church: 1849-57

One of the founding American masters, sole pupil of the founder of the Hudson River School, his landscapes are meticulously detailed and painted in the studio from many plein air oil sketches. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 20 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 357

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 357. Here are my solutions to them. 1: John’s afterword […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 20 days ago

The Minimise Easter Egg lives on

Everything you need to know about how to have fun with this Easter Egg, which is even better in more recent versions of macOS. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 20 days ago

Painting Pandora and her box: 1883-1919

Suddenly popular in paintings from around 1880, the story of Pandora and her box brought many interpretations, and remains a story of our time. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 21 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Didn’t macOS have a GUI?

For the first 17 years, Macs got by perfectly well without a command line. Apple's server admin apps featured extensive GUIs, and saved admins from using Terminal. But now even Apple tells folk to practise for ClickFix. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 21 days ago

Painting Pandora and her box: 1550-1882

A strange ancient Greek myth of the creation of woman was hardly ever painted until the 19th century. Even then, only one depicted the crux of the story until it became popular late in the century. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 22 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 357

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


@eclecticlight.co | 22 days ago

Explainer: Network file systems

How AFP and SMB enable access to shares on servers, early problems with SMB on Macs, printer access, and limitations with APFS special files. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 22 days ago

Reading Visual Art: 250 Winged sandals

The talaria fashioned from gold by Vulcan for Hermes as messenger of the gods, and lent to Perseus when he was sent to bring back the head of Medusa/ | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 23 days ago

The secret life of the xattr

Introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 to extend resource forks, they have flourished since. Explains their storage, how they persist or don't, with an appendix explaining their flags. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 23 days ago

Naturalists: Education

How the introduction of secular, free and mandatory education in the French Third Republic was depicted at the time, from cradle to doctorate. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 24 days ago

Networking changes coming in macOS 27

We are under warning that macOS 27 is likely to remove support for AFP, and lately some additional requirements for connection to certain servers. This explains how these could affect you. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 24 days ago

On Reflection: Hodler and Klimt

Unusual use and manipulation of reflections by Ferdinand Hodler in his Parallelism, and by Gustav Klimt painting through a telescope on his summer holidays. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 25 days ago

The macOS Natural Language framework and Nalaprop

Since macOS Mojave, macOS has had deep support for natural languages beyond English. Although Nalaprop demonstrates some of its features, it could do much more now. Should it? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 25 days ago

Medium and Message: Stained glass

Designs for stained glass windows by Koloman Moser, and paintings of them by Millais, Helleu, Odilon Redon, Sichulski, Lhermitte and Rochegrosse. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 26 days ago

The MACL extended attribute

Introduced in Catalina to enable 'privacy by user intent', these contain header-UUID pairs, with the UUID identifying the app granted access. But UUIDs change with every restart, so can't be used to track access prior to the current session. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 26 days ago

Jerusalem Delivered: 13 Leading characters

A summary of the stories and fate of the 6 leading characters: Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince Tancred, Rinaldo, Clorinda, Princess Erminia and Armida. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 27 days ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 356

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 356. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Lowing and […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 27 days ago

Privacy: How locations are protected

How can Privacy & Security show that access by an app to a protected folder is disabled, yet the app can still access that folder? With additional details of privacy controls over storage locations. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 27 days ago

Painting Spring blossom 2

Paintings by Helen Allingham, Willard Metcalf, Pierre Bonnard, JW Waterhouse, Nikolai Astrup, and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 28 days ago

Last Week on My Mac: Don’t be a victim of fraud

Nothing in macOS protects you from fraudulent apps. They're commonly notarised, and some have even been supplied from the App Store. Firewalls and keeping macOS up to date are also no protection. Here's practical advice. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 28 days ago

Painting Spring blossom 1

Paintings by Samuel Palmer, Millais, Millet, Alfred Sisley, Vincent van Gogh. Carl Larsson, Sérusier, LA Ring and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 29 days ago

Saturday Mac riddles 356

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


@eclecticlight.co | 29 days ago

Explainer: Recovery

Introduced 15 years ago, what was originally a Recovery partition has become complex in Intel Macs, and completely different in Apple silicon, with a fallback. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 29 days ago

Reading Visual Art: 249 Mask

Masks as symbols of theatre and drama, in ancient times, from Noh theatre in Japonisme, in masked balls, and in carnivals. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Five months later and the Clock app still has an obvious bug

Revisits a bug in the Timers feature in the Clock app in Tahoe 26.1. This led to the feature failing to load or work. How has it changed in 26.4.1? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Naturalists: Urban poverty

Paintings of urban poverty were acclaimed at the Salon during the 1880s. A small selection from Fernand Pelez, Antonino Gandolfo (Catania, Sicily), Christian Krohg (Norway) and others. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

DFU mode

How Intel Macs with T2 chips, and Apple silicon Macs can be rescued from the apparently dead by connecting them to another Mac in DFU mode. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

On Reflection: Cézanne

Although he painted many reflections, Paul Cézanne's are the most enigmatic, as they almost all have substantial anomalies according to optical principles. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Privacy: Which folders are protected in Tahoe?

Seven different locations examined to see how privacy protection is applied to them, including control over writing files, and listing folder contents. Some surprises too, and a new version of Insent. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Medium and Message: Mosaic

Popular in ancient times, those in Ravenna inspired Klimt. Luc-Olivier Merson and Elihu Vedder created their own, Sichulski imitated them, and Signac used similar patches of paint. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Dual-boot an Apple silicon Mac in Sequoia or Tahoe

If you want to dual-boot between Sequoia and Tahoe, for example, there are four main options, including external bootable disks and VMs. These tips help you choose which is most suitable.. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Jerusalem Delivered: 12 Delivery

The Egyptian army arrives, and the crusaders attack them outside the city of Jerusalem. Despite cunning attempts to kill Godfrey, his crusaders win the day, and deliver the holy city at last. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 355

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 355. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Covid, smallpox, […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

CPU core frequencies updated for all current Apple silicon Macs

Complete listing of all frequency steps for M1-M5 chips in each variant, for E, P and S cores, and for the A18 Pro in the MacBook Neo. Is the M5 P type more like an older E or P core? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Centaurs 2: Revenge

When the centaur Nessus tries to abduct his wife, Hercules shoots him with a poisoned arrow. But Nessus gets his revenge when Hercules' wife gives her husband a shirt impregnated with Nessus' blood. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Last Week on My Mac: Root cause analysis and ClickFix

ClickFix attacks are attracting considerable engineering effort at detection, and warning users when they could be running into danger. But what is being done to prevent users from being prey to them? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Centaurs 1: Fights

Well known for their fights and battles, Delacroix was fond of Chiron, Achilles tutor, but Pirithous and Hippodame regretted inviting them to their wedding feast. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Saturday Mac riddles 355

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


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Explainer: sandboxes

One of the requirements of App Store apps is that they run in a sandbox. What does mean, and how does it affect the app? And why does privacy protection also use a sandbox? | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Naturalists: The modern meal

Starting from Manet's notorious painting of a picnic in 1863, socialising at mealtime became a popular theme in paintings that weren't in the least bit Impressionist. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Why you can’t trust Privacy & Security

How to gain access to the contents of privacy-protected folders even though Privacy & Security settings say that access is denied. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS

Overnight, Apple has released its regular weekly update to XProtect, bringing it to version 5338. As usual it […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Apple has just released an update to macOS Tahoe, to version 26.4.1

Apple has just released an update to macOS Tahoe, bringing it to version 26.4.1. Apple’s Enterprise release notes […] | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

On Reflection: Divisionism

Technically challenging for painstaking Divisionist techniques, those who chose to depict reflections used studies to help, and Seurat was generally optically faithful. But the best of all was Théo van Rysselberghe. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago

Please help update CPU frequencies for Apple silicon Macs

Have you got a MacBook Neo, or a MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro or Max chip? Could you please help update the table of CPU core frequencies, as explained here. | Continue reading


@eclecticlight.co | 1 month ago