September 22 - 26 more than 2,000 people from Toronto and around the world are expected to attend TorontoTechWeek, a very important ICT (Information and Communication Technology) event featuring keynote speakers, educational sessions, and networking opportunities. Now in its second year TorontoTechWeek is designed to address the needs and interests of entrepreneurs, executives, senior managers, investors, marketers, and IT professionals associated with the ICT sector.

Toronto is home to over 3,000 technology companies, ranking third among all cities in North America in the ICT sector, after only Silicon Valley and New York. Programs will address the hottest topics in the industry - The Corporate Adoption of Web 2.0, Software as a Service (SaaS), Talent Management, Future Forward, and more. Keynote speakers are some of the luminaries in the industry including Sharif Khan of Microsoft Canada, Richard McDonald of IBM, and David Ticoll of the ICT Council and University of Toronto.

Registration is still open. If you purchase a ticket for any of the sessions you will be invited to attend the opening keynote event on Monday, September 22nd and the TorontoTechWeek Party - a great networking opportunity - on Thursday, September 25th at the Revival Bar located at 738 College Street.

For those of you who are traveling to the event WestJet and the Marriott Hotel are offering special discounts for TorontoTechWeek attendees. Check out the savings.

The ICT industry is changing so quickly that it is important to stay current and keep on top of the trends. TorontoTechWeek is a great event for those in the industry and for those who want to get into it.

It constantly amazes me at how a well oiled marketing and advertising machine can totally manipulate us into believing anything. A perfect case in point is water - yes garden variety drinking water. Toronto’s drinking water is of excellent quality and strictly monitored and regulated. Do we want to drink it? No, instead we prefer to drink bottled water in spite of the fact that most of it is tap water anyways. Dasani brand bottled water puts Brampton’s municipal water through a filtration system and then sells it. If you buy Dasani bottled water, don’t you feel foolish right now? Tap water is actually safer because monitoring requirements for tap water are much stricter than for bottled water. And, the cost differential between tap and bottled water is astronomical. Tap water costs about an eighth of a cent per litre while bottled water can range anywhere from 30 cents to $4 a bottle.

An unfortunate by-product of the bottled water craze is the bottled water waste that is taking up enormous amounts of space in our landfills. According to David Suzuki, plastic that stays on land or that is buried can take hundreds of years to break down, and even then it doesn’t completely biodegrade. This has become a major issue in many municipalities and as a result London, Ontario has banned the sale of bottled water in their municipal buildings. Toronto, Kitchener, Ottawa, and Vancouver are looking into doing the same. Needless to say the Canadian Bottled Water Association, which represents about 100 bottlers across the country, is not amused. They say that 2 surveys have shown that if bottled water is not available, people will not drink tap water. They will merely buy another bottled beverage.

Do you think that we should ban the sale of bottled water in Toronto’s municipal buildings? If you are a bottled water drinker, what would induce you to give up bottled water in favour of tap water?

It’s time to leave the remote controls at home and come out to celebrate books! Toronto will be transformed into a Mecca for booklovers on Sunday, September 28th as The Word on the Street returns to Queen’s Park from 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM. Come rain or shine. This fantastic event is absolutely FREE!

The Word on the Street is totally family friendly. There is even a special area created just for the young ones called KidStreet where there will be programs designed for book lovers under the age of 12 and where all merchandise is geared for children and/or their parents. There is a fully stocked “Parent and Tot” tent for those of you attending with wee ones. The site is wheelchair accessible and we encourage everyone to attend. You can even bring your pets as long as you keep them on a leash. There is so much going on for everyone. Please consult the site map to ensure that you don’t miss out on a single thing.

Last year over 200,000 people came out for this fabulous event celebrating literacy. The Word on the Street is Canada’s largest book and magazine festival. Browse the book, magazine, and literacy exhibitor booths. Discover your new favourite author. Attend readings. Many authors will be on hand to meet, greet, and personally sign your books.

Please leave the car at home and take the TTC. Queen’s Park is located just south of the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) at Bloor Street West and Avenue Road/Queen’s Park Crescent. Take the subway to the Museum Station on the University section of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line. The 506 Carlton West streetcar passes immediately south of Queen’s Park. Check the TTC website for other routes.

Photo courtesy Flickr

Disseminating transit information to an eager and waiting public should go a long way to easing anxiety and calming frazzled nerves. It will also hopefully put an end to people charging closing doors and overcrowded cars if they know that the next train in only one minute away. The new TTC “NEXT-TRAIN-ARRIVAL” system was put in place at Dundas Station as a three-month pilot project to test the waters and see exactly what information the traveling public wants before the program goes into wide release and is put in place in all 69 subway stations by the end of 2009.

At the bottom of the electronic screens there are notices that say “NEXT TRAIN COMING” followed by a countdown clock. If there is a delay for any reason, details about the delay and when you can expect the next car will be posted. The pilot project at Dundas Station will cost $300,000 to implement. And this is only the beginning. In the not too distant future the TTC will be offering email updates on delays of service and an ecommerce system that will allow you to plan your route and buy your fares online.

However, before the email and ecommerce systems are implemented the “NEXT BUS SYSTEM” will be deployed. Beginning sometime this year and continuing into next year GPS technology will be employed to let bus and streetcar passengers know when the next bus or streetcar will be arriving. Knowing about delays and service interruptions will give riders the option of changing routes instead of languishing at the stop. Grey Island Systems was awarded the almost $10 million contract.

These new systems sound great! Now can the TTC do something about the fares?

According to Dan McTeague, Member of Parliament and Official Opposition Critic for Consumer Affairs and Consular Services, “In the GTA major refiner/marketers are charging an unbelievable 10.8 cents/litre above the US wholesale rate for gasoline. In Calgary the markup is 17.9 cents/litre; Edmonton is 15.6 cents/litre; and Vancouver motorists are paying a 14.4 cent premium through the same monopolistic practices at the refinery level.”

We know that we are being ripped off royally and the price of gas is the topic of conversation “de jour” on everyone’s lips, but we continue to go grumbling to the pumps. Although there is a lot of talk about walking or cycling instead of driving, car pooling, or using the TTC, the efforts or lack thereof have amounted to absolutely nothing. The first time that we may be slightly inconvenienced by using another mode of transportation we reach for the car keys like addicts to their poison of choice.

Jason Toews, co-founder of www.gasbuddy.com and www.torontogasprices.com believes that by year end gas prices will be around $1.00/litre. Although the price of crude oil has been coming down, we have only seen the prices at the pumps trickle down because gas retailers buy crude well in advance so it will take some time before the savings are passed along to us. Derek Burleton, a TD Bank economist agrees. The reality is that without a crystal ball no one really knows and there are always contradictory opinions. Hurricane Gustav put the fear of God in the pundits and the CIBC World Markets predicted that gas prices could reach the astronomical price of $1.75/litre. Thankfully that never happened.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the gas prices continue to go down. In the meantime check http://www.torontogasprices.com/ for the cheapest gas prices in your neighbourhood.