The devil's darning needles have had a bad press, and appear in just a few paintings. Here's a vanitas still life, a meal for chaffinches, and some stranger associations.

How to investigate an app that crashes when starting up, using log entries. Includes detailed instructions for one of the simplest adventures in the log, and a summary of code signature errors.

Humans have lived with trees since our origins, and trees feature in many paintings. This explains the importance of sketching them from life, and shows examples of different species and contrasting artists from Rubens and van Ruisdael to van Gogh and Cézanne.

When a can only run for a moment, it might seem hard to work out why it crashes. Here are useful clues from the crash log and elsewhere to help you get the app running properly.

Apple has released its regular weekly update to XProtect for all versions of macOS, bringing it to version […]

Two groups of paintings: figures seen mostly in planar mirrors arranged vertically, and landscapes reflected by a horizontal water surface.

Some background tasks will only run when a laptop Mac is connected to mains (AC) power. This is also true for XProtect Remediator scans. What can you do to ensure these are still run?

When you need to check what's in a potential phishing email, run a locked-down virtual machine for safety, as explained here.

Venetian walls were too damp for fresco, so their largest painting were made on stretched canvas. Those giants exceed 10 m (33 feet) in their longer dimension, with the largest 22 m (72 feet).

Not sure which Retina quality displays you can use with your Apple silicon Mac? This site has all the answers and more.

To enable Theseus to retrace his steps out of the Labyrinth, Ariadne gives him a ball of thread, in return for which he promises to marry her. Once the couple escape to the island of Naxos, Theseus abandons her and sails back to Athens.

Spotlight can't index the contents of document versions to make them searchable. How you can change that and save having to browse those versions when you need to recover old content.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 361. Here are my solutions to them. 1: This second […]

Spotlight fails to index the content of text files starting with odd characters like 'LG' and 'Draw', Although we understand this is caused by checking the file type using file(1), this suggests an explanation of why it should do that. And whether it will ever get fixed for Intel Macs.

A painting commissioned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany towards the end of the 30 Years' War in Europe, details with its figures the suffering resulting from war, rather than the triumph of victory.

If generating QuickLook thumbnails and previews, and indexing metadata for Spotlight, depend on UTIs, how come they tolerate misleading file extensions? A simple practical demo.

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

A painting for England's King Charles I to encourage him to make peace with Spain, left by Rubens in 1630. Its figures make clear the meaning of war, as explained here.

You realise that a few hours ago you trashed an important file by accident. How can you search your Time Machine backups without looking through them one at a time?

Do you know the difference between a caduceus and the rod of Asclepius, what each means? Paintings by William Blake, Renoir, and others explain.

You're in a rush, and need to disconnect your MacBook Pro's external drive. But when you try to eject it, one or more programs may be using it. What do you do next?

Contents of this series, together with a list of major Naturalist painters and links to fuller accounts of their paintings.

Little used for 400 years, in the 19th century painters extended their scenes by including reflections seen in a mirror. Here are some significant examples.

How to discover what went wrong when a document doesn't show the right thumbnail, but a generic icon instead. How to dive deeper to solve problems with 3rd party thumbnail and preview generators.

From red-figure paintings on Greek pottery, through tin-glazed maiolica, to painted porcelain and enamelled earthenware, more painting in three dimensions.

Apple has released its regular weekly update to XProtect for all versions of macOS, bringing it to version […]

Most apps save settings in their preferences file managed by cfprefsd as the UserDefaults server. Here's how to avoid problems that can cause, and how to use the defaults command.

Generating icons for display as thumbnails, and previews of documents, depend on speed of delivery and icons as faithful as possible for their size. How QuickLook achieves this in Tahoe.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 360. Here are my solutions to them. 1: With parents […]

Born son of the King of Athens, the god Poseidon, and Princess Aethra, his first task was to find his father's sandals and sword, and take them to Athens, where Medea tried to poison him.