I am sure you have begun to notice a seemingly increase in major earthquakes throughout the world recently.  I decided to research why this might be happening.  Many people are looking for a recent earthquakes explanation, so here is an explanation for recent earthquakes.

There have been 6 major earthquakes since the beginning of 2010.  Major is defined as magnitude of 7.0 or greater.  Here is a list of all the notable earthquakes that have happened just this year.  This information is taken from the US Geological Survey website.

• Magnitude 6.9 SOUTHERN QINGHAI, CHINA April 13, 2010
• Magnitude 6.3 SPAIN April 11, 2010
• Magnitude 6.8 SOLOMON ISLANDS April 11, 2010
• Magnitude 7.7 NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA April 06, 2010
• Magnitude 7.2 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO April 04, 2010
• Magnitude 4.4 GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA, CALIFORNIA March 16, 2010
• Magnitude 6.7 OFFSHORE BIO-BIO, CHILE March 16, 2010
• Magnitude 6.5 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN March 14, 2010
• Magnitude 6.9 LIBERTADOR O HIGGINS, CHILE March 11, 2010
• Magnitude 6.1 EASTERN TURKEY March 08, 2010
• Magnitude 6.8 SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA March 05, 2010
• Magnitude 6.6 OFFSHORE BIO-BIO, CHILE March 05, 2010
• Magnitude 8.8 OFFSHORE MAULE, CHILE February 27, 2010
• Magnitude 7.0 RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN February 26, 2010
• Magnitude 6.9 CHINA-RUSSIA-NORTH KOREA BORDER REGION February 18, 2010
• Magnitude 3.8 ILLINOIS February 10, 2010
• Magnitude 5.9 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA February 04, 2010
• Magnitude 6.2 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA February 01, 2010
• Magnitude 5.9 HAITI REGION January 20, 2010
• Magnitude 4.0 OKLAHOMA January 15, 2010
• Magnitude 7.0 HAITI REGION January 12, 2010
• Magnitude 6.5 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA January 10, 2010
• Magnitude 4.1 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA January 07, 2010
• Magnitude 6.8 SOLOMON ISLANDS January 05, 2010
• Magnitude 7.1 SOLOMON ISLANDS January 03, 2010
• Magnitude 6.6 SOLOMON ISLANDS January 03, 2010

As you can see there have been many significant earthquakes that have not even been reported.  Keep in mind some of the major earthquakes have taken place in highly populated areas which causes a lot more damage, deaths and injuries.  This tends to make them more News worthy.

Why so many recent earthquakes?

According to the USGS,

“Scientists say 2010 is not showing signs of unusually high earthquake activity. Since 1900, an average of 16 magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes — the size that seismologists define as major — have occurred worldwide each year. Some years have had as few as 6, as in 1986 and 1989, while 1943 had 32, with considerable variability from year to year.”

Geologists also say that they have recently installed many new seismic activity monitors around the world in the last few years and global communications has increased dramatically in recent times which is why it seems like there are an increasing amount of major earthquakes.

There is also a rumor floating around about HAARP technology being the cause for devastating earthquakes.  I have seen some conspiracy theories on this on YouTube such as this video.  The video sounds convincing, but if you notice they cut off the video right as the guy mentions weapons of mass destruction that HAARP could possibly create an earthquake. Then they repeat it three times and then switch to another clip and not let him finish.

It would be nice to hear what he said after that but I couldn’t find the full video.  Anyway, the HAARP facility is supposedly open to the public and the findings from the research are published in public scientific journals.

Although I find it hard to trust the government, I have yet to see convincing enough evidence that supports the idea of the HAARP actually causing earthquakes.  I do get a bad feeling about heating up the ionosphere and playing around with the atmosphere in general.  It is very important to our survival and should not be tampered with unless absolutely certainty of safety.

Overall I see no reason enough to assume the end of the world is coming.

What do you think?

Last night I was browsing around Amazon’s site when I noticed it became sluggish.  Then it started becoming really sluggish, to the point where it no longer worked.  This is the first time I witnessed such a large site go down like this, so I figured it must be a connection problem on my end.  I checked other PC’s and it wouldn’t work there as well.  The Internet was working but Amazon was actually down.

Come to find out that Amazon was under attack.  Under attack?  Yes, even power houses like Amazon can get taken down, well at least for a little while.  I came across an article on Mashable this morning stating that Amazon and other companies such as Walmart and Expedia had received DDos attacks.

For those of you who are not aware what a DDos attack is, it is basically an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to it’s users.  Basically the attack is initiated by saturating the site with communication attempts.  Once the communications get to much for the server to handle it disrupts others from accessing the site or will force the server to reboot.

As you would imagine, taking down a site like Amazon, even for an hour during such a busy time like Christmas could make an impact.  I imagine Walmart would be impacted as well.  There is no evidence of who caused this DDos attack or what the motives were.

There is a debate that has been around for some time now.  Is it better to get a degree in Information Technology or get certifications? Of course you can go after both but let me provide some insight from personal experience. I have a BS in Technical Management from DeVry University in Long Beach ,CA.  So far it has served me quite well.  I have already had a decent career so far.  I don’t have any certifications either.  I noticed that during an interview the degree gets acknowledged but so far nobody questions what specifically I learned.  What they do question is demonstrated ability to perform the job functions they require.  In other words, experience.

Experience Wins

In past interviews I almost always have been asked about the previous companies I have worked for and exactly what I did for those companies.  I have been asked if I had certifications before but it didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t have any.  Lots of times job descriptions state that they require A+ or other certs but will often over look it if you show relevant experience. This why it is very important to list on your resume the specific job functions you performed for your previous companies.  These experiences are key to a support related career.

Of course if you have no experience then you need to break down what you learned in school and show some examples of work. Along with experience you also need people skills.  In the desktop support/helpdesk world (which is where I have specific expertise), you need to have people skills and certain personality traits.  These traits along with demonstrated experience is the key.  Specific traits are, able to communicate well and deal with any type of personality, excellent communications skills, patience and punctuality.  I am sure you have heard the term, “different strokes, for different folks”, right?

Where you get your IT education really only matters on a per job basis.  Some companies won’t even consider you if you don’t have a specific certification.  Some companies won’t hire you if your degree is not from a UC college.  This is because they are looking for a specific skill set and/or believe that quality people come from these types of colleges.  (I disagree of course)

In helpdesk/desktop support you need only know how to troubleshoot PC’s and specific applications.  The applications vary from company to company and they usually desire experience with a specific application or a similar one. Most of this job is successful communication with users and professionalism.  Having an A+ certification pretty much proves that you have the knowledge of understanding how a PC functions, but professionalism and communication come from practice.  I am willing to bet that a person with no formal education in computers but a few years of support experience, in most cases will be a better support person than a person with a BA in computer science but no support experience.

Final thoughts

So the answer to the question, “Is it better to have a degree or a certification?” is that it really depends on the job and the company.  In the helpdesk/desktop support world I can tell you that experience working with people is key and education can only help.  I have met excellent support people who have just high school education. I look forward to readers comments on this one because I know that there is a ton more insight that people can add to this discussion.  I can only speak from my own experience which is of course limited.  I would really like to hear from someone who only has certifications and their experiences getting jobs.

If you are not already aware, Microsoft has released a free version of Windows 7.  It is what’s called a “release candidate”.  It is different from a beta because it comes after the beta and adds fixes to problems found in the beta.  Microsoft is offering this release candidate only until August 20th.  That means you only have 15 days left from the date of this post to try windows 7 for free.

If you do get it you can use it all the way until June of 2010 before it expires.  That will give you plenty of time to learn it and make your decision to buy it.  If you are wondering why you should download it when you have a perfectly good working OS.  Well let me explain.  Vista (if you didn’t try it already) didn’t quite work out as well as Microsoft thought and had some really annoying problems.

It was much better visually but functionally didn’t do as well as people had hoped.  Windows 7 basically takes all the good parts of Vista and corrects the bad parts.  This is very similar to what happened with Windows XP.  Remember, Windows ME and 2000?  Windows XP basically took the stability of windows 2000 and the visual and multimedia aspects of ME and created the perfect operating system.

Well Windows 7 attemps a similar feat and should be the OS that takes over in the future.  So go download it while there is still time and burn the ISO to a DVD and install it on a computer.  Don’t use you primary computer just in case you don’t end up liking it.  I was able to use a free program called PowerISO to burn the image to a DVD.  If you don’t wish to install windows 7 as a clean copy you can upgrade from the CD also.

It’s 12:05AM on April Fool’s day. So far nothing has happened. I got a message earlier from a friend asking me what I thought about the virus. I said I had never heard of it. I did a quick search and the little I read seemed to me like an April fools joke.

I have read that the virus had spread around the internet rather quickly and can disable many essential security services on your PC. There have been countless stories all around the Internet warning that the virus may do something horrible to computers all around the world on this day.

This virus doesn’t seem to affect Windows Vista users. I use Vista X64, so I doubt they wrote the virus to work on computers that use Vista x64. Many antivirus websites are warning to upgrade to their non free versions of their software to protect from the worm. This sounds like an excellent ploy to make a quick buck. People panic easily so they will be happy to purchase software for the illusion of security.

No doubt this will be an interesting day on the Internet. Well, off to bed.

The Buddy Geek.

If you haven’t noticed yet there has been this new virus that has been showing up recently on pc’s throughout the world.  It is the latest evil in the unstoppable world of trojans, viruses, spyware, malware, rootkits, phishing, etc. that infect the world daily.

It will send you pop-ups that will tell you that there are viruses on your computer and you should purchase Antivirus 2009 or 2008 to get rid of the infections.  It is a very intelligent trojan that will give you fake Windows Security Windows, fake program ads to buy a program, fake virus scan windows, etc. 

It seems obvious that the idea of the virus is to get you to fill out a form with your credit card infomation.  Once you do it sends the information to someone else for identity theft.

I work in the IT department and troubleshoot pc’s daily and found 3 pc’s already with this virus.

This infection is tricky.  It uses multiple fake windows system files and registry entries to operate.  It can disable some services on your system as well.  It took some time and research but I found a great set of manual instructions that truly will get rid of the virus if done correctly.

Basically you need to get rid of the following 3 registry entries and files.

ieupdates.exe
scui.cpl
winsrc.dll

You must remove the registry entires, then folders and files.  You should also remove any shortcuts in your start menu or desktop that point to the the antivirus 2009 executable.  Remove the antivirus 2009 folder from your programs folder as well.

I found the correct steps from Miguel Campos blog.  I tried them on one users computer weeks ago and the virus has not returned.  Follow the exact steps on his blog and it will

Thinking about switching to Metro PCS?  Be careful. I Recently switched to this carrier because I was enticed by the unlimited use and monthly fee with no contract.  I went to the authorized dealer inside of Lakewood mall, CA.  I bought their most expensive phone the Samsung SCH-R410 because It was 1 of only 2 phones that have the QWERTY style keyboard. 

I was never a fan of texting using the dialing keys.   I signed up for the full unlimited plan for $50/month.  You get unlimited texting, talking, SMS and email.  This phone seemed to be ok for the first day but I quickly noticed that the battery did not last the whole day.  No matter how much I used the phone it would be dead before I got home from work.

Another thing I noticed was that the reception was very limited and not all SMS and text messages would go through successfully.  Now I know most phones lose reception now and again but this one would lose reception all over the place.  Specifically at my house and and work which are the two main places I will be using it! Metro PCS is growing fast so I am sure they will eventually get their act straight. 

In the meantime if you switch now you run the risk of getting mediocre coverage and possible cheap phones.  Another thing you should know about Metro is that they phones do not use SIM cards so you have to buy one of their phones.

The Bottom Line

If I were you, I would not switch to Metro just yet.  It is still building it’s coverage areas up and getting the kinks out of their service.  The company is on the verge of going public which should give them a nice surge in cash.  Hopefully they use this cash to enhance and solidify their service.  I do like their ideas however and will remain a customer.  I plan on visiting their corporate headquarters and seeing if I can get a phone exchange.  I am hoping maybe I just have a bad phone and the new one will have a lasting battery.