Today a question on the TLUG mailing list asked about peoples' experience in shopping for computer components in the College/Spadina area of Toronto.

Most of what I want can be found inexpensively enough at Canada Computer at Yonge & Sheppard, TigerDirect, or a store whose name escapes me on the north side of Sheppard just west of Allen Road. If I really want the clone-parts experience, these days I would go to Pacific Mall, which IIRC has more hole-in-the-wall PC parts places than College & Spadina while boasting IMO the world's finest food court.

One of the things that has long bothered me about IT certification is that, unlike in so many other professional fields, certification is primarily seen as a way for vendors to sell training. Certification is seen by most providers as the end-goal of using a vendor service (IT education), and as such is as much a marketing tool as an educational one.