certified courses from manufacturers

[jimmy5k]

how good is a certification course?

i know of people with microsoft certification
i heard of cisco certified network admin...

what else would someone recommend?

[MezzUp]

You might want to look at CompTIA's certifications(A+, Network+.....)

[deddard]

There's more qualifications out there than you can shake a stick at!
It really depends on what you want - networking, hardware maintenance etc.
CompTIA are usually a good starting point, but just about everyone does their own certification, including Apple, Novell, Red Hat, IBM etc etc.

To get into networking and support, you should probably consider:

CompTIA A+
CompTIA Network+
MCSA (windows 2003/XP)

For more advanced networking (including setting up vlans, routers etc) then Cisco CCNA is the way to go.
Security starts at CompTIAs Security+ , and if you like this field, then you can go right through to CISSP ( it will take some years though!)

I'd also look at Linux qualifications - CompTIA Linux+, Red Hat certification, as well as other OS based stuff like Mac OS X (putting all your eggs in one microsoft basket isn't the best idea)

What sort of thing are you interested in?

[MezzUp]

Being that many computer are still running Windows 2000(I think), wouldn't it be smart to take the MCSA2000 and then upgrade it MCSA2003 with the one test(IIRC). Then you should know both areas.