This is the second in my series of articles looking at paintings believed to have been created a century ago, in 1923. This covers portraits, non-narrative figurative works, and still lifes. Subseq… | Continue reading
If you use macOS VMs on an Apple silicon Mac, folders shared with the host may vanish in 14.2 and later. Here’s why, which are affected, and how to work around the problem. | Continue reading
Passes of St Gothard, Chalus in N Iran, the Pyrenees, the Vikos Gorge, the Daryal Gorge in the Caucasus, the Simplon and others. | Continue reading
Comparison between 2 Intel and 2 Apple silicon Macs running vector and matrix functions from Apple’s Accelerate library. Was that new M3 worth the money? | Continue reading
More examples drawn from “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and from “The Tempest”, that were exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere. | Continue reading
If you run macOS virtual machines (VMs) on Apple silicon Macs using lightweight virtualisation, you may wish to avoid updating those VMs to macOS Sonoma 14.2 or 14.2.1 for the moment. If you do, th… | Continue reading
It turns out that the Finder is just retaining all those image thumbnails in its memory for 2-3 days after you last browsed them. Is this what we want? | Continue reading
Apple has just released an update to XProtect Remediator security software (Catalina or later), bringing it to version 122 (the previous released version was 120), and to XProtect (for all macOS fr… | Continue reading
Apple has just released an update to macOS Sonoma, bringing it to version 14.2.1. On Intel Macs, the update is just over 400 MB, so appears to be a minor patch. Apple’s release notes are ters… | Continue reading
Found in Celtic and Germanic folklore, they first become popular in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and established a sub-genre in the 19th century. | Continue reading
Step by step guide to passing your Mac on or recycling it. Use EACAS where available. Don’t use .AppleSetupDone which doesn’t work in macOS 14 anyway. | Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
The visions of Joan of Arc painted by Jules Bastien-Lepage, the American Gari Melchers, Odilon Redon, John William Waterhouse, and others. | Continue reading
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
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
Franz von Stuck, Lovis Corinth, Jacek Malczewski, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Albin Egger-Lienz, and Edmond Aman-Jean tell stories from 1923. | Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
Henry Fuseli, Ary Scheffer, Botticelli, William Blake and other artists paint the ghosts in Shakespeare's plays and other literary sources. | Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
Do you think that iCloud+ Private Relay is reducing network responsiveness or performance? These results may surprise you. | Continue reading
A nocturne by Luce, Hokusai-inspired waves by Lacomb the Nabi sculptor, Moret’s coastal views, and two portraits by Elizabeth Nourse. | Continue reading
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
Its weather is often wild, with mountainous seas. Views of its rugged coast, seaweed harvesting, and religious pardons. | Continue reading
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
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
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
AppleCare+ combines extended warranty on defects with insurance cover for accidental damage. This explains the benefits now offered for Macs. | Continue reading
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
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
The hills are alive with eagles, black grouse, sheep, highland cattle, deer, and even the occasional goat. | Continue reading
Assessing throughput using tests of fast Fourier transforms and sparse Cholesky factorisation from the Accelerate library. Is there an AMX there? | Continue reading
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
How to back up all your iCloud Drive documents, minimise snapshot size, keep integrity checks in important files, and more. | Continue reading
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
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
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