Noteworthy stuff I did this month

Learning & University

I have been onboarded on my new job as a member of the pedagogical team of Epitech Paris. Starting in December, It will be my pleasure to run our 3rd year students through a new pool (a multiple week intense training aiming to bring all students on the same base level).

Started reading The design of everyday things by Don Norman. Until now, I only read about technology related UX, and I think this book will give me a broader vision on this subject.

Computer hardware issues

While writing the last log quite late in August, my trusted companion (an HP Probook 440 G6 i7) started having issues. It has been with me since my first year at Epitech (2019!) and was my main machine ever since. Symptoms were random crashes and boot loops. After opening it with the kit I bought in Korea and seeing no damage, I made my mind to change the motherboard. So I ordered a new one from Aliexpress.

In the meantime I was planning to use my backup, a Macbook Air 2015 booting from a drive with Archlinux I extracted from the Probook. But those plans were cut short by the Broadcom network card of this generation of macs which I believe is not well-supported. Also had some vconsole issues preventing me to enter my encryption key at startup.

Following the pain of trying to fix the mac, I decided to take on the offer of a friend and borrowed his computer to, at least, get some progress done on the EIP project.

Fast-forward to today and I have finally received the motherboard. Everything seems to be working well except the bios is protected by a password. This prevents me from booting on any drive other than the already installed hp M.2 SSD. Currently waiting for the response of the Aliexpress seller (which I honestly doubt will ever come).

Since it is not as simple as removing the battery to reset the CMOS nowadays, my backup plan consists in unsoldering the one from my old motherboard and soldering it back on the new one.

Programming

Due to my hardware problems, I had to stop work on my personal project, so this section is small.

During my few days with no computer other than a Mac, I decided to try iOS development. I reused an old idea of mine and have achieved some decent results. I have to say the developer experience is on point. Everything is a bit overwhelming at first, but once I understood the basis of views / view controllers it went really smooth.

Other

Successfully passed my driver’s license theory exam.

Successfully killed 30% of the plants left in my charge by not watering them enough.