GCPA - Googlle Certified Professional in Advance computing which promises to offer some web-technology courses in Windows and Linux platforms.

GCPE - Googlle Certified Professional in E-commerce which offers you some courses related to web-designing and stuffs.

Googlle certifications. Seriously! I was laughing so hard that I couldn't even breathe.

Apparently, this "Googlle" is a division of C.B.Online Pvt. Ltd, some frigging third-rated company which is based at Bhubaneswar, Orissa. But on a serious note, this isn't the first instance for such goof-ups. There were some institutes offering courses with the names Haarvard, Oxfard and Stenford. This reminds me of an incident that happened two months ago when I received a mail from Sandeep Bohra, the so-called Manager from Wipro Infotech with the following message and attachment.

Dear Applicant
This is inform you that your Resume has been short listed from Naukri.com and after our hrd had been short list you in the company, so read carefully the attachment file.

Thank you
SANDEEP BOHRA
WIPRO INFOTECH INDIA

Paying for an interview? Whoa! Get a life scumbags! Nobody is going to believe that!

It all started when Simon King, an English graduate working at an American University was fed up with not knowing how his team was doing. What began as a network of fans over Chat instantaneously grew about to become the world’s largest cricket website.

Founded in 1993, the technology then was quite basic. It had one person recording the score and the other generating a flat file. With more demand from the ardent, 21st Century fans regarding the statistical analysis and more new rules introduced from the International Cricket Council, the then Cricinfo went topsy-turvy and didn’t have any other choice rather than scaling itself up. Although it doesn't seem like it, scoring cricket is fantastically sophisticated since there are an extraordinary number of things which can happen, such as a super sub or ball hitting the helmet kept behind the keeper and so on.

Zach Hitchcock, ex-employer New Zealand cricket team developed a Video Analysis software and started out his own venture with the help of Chris Cairns, New Zealand all-rounder, which latter became ‘Feedback Sports Ltd’. Based on his experience in the cricketing analysis, he was referred to Cricinfo. With Zach and Lupo Data Concepts, a BESPOKE application was developed that feeds real-time scoring information into the website.

Here is how it works. An operator sets up a match in the software by accessing the relevant match information in the database. The scorer sits in front of a television and uses a ‘point and click’ interface to describe the action as it happens. The software has an interface to score each ball of the cricket match live, in real-time. The scorer has the option to automatically generate real language descriptions of the game, which can be over-written should anything unexpected happen like super sub, etc. Once the information for a ball has been entered, the scorer sends the same and the software packages it up and in turn sends it to their Linux-based server which displays the data on the website.

Matt Pickering, Business Development Manager for Lupo Data Concepts, says

The technology choice for the project was crucial. Before we even began we could see a number of challenges we would need to address. Cricinfo has scorers in India, South Africa and England which meant we needed to deploy the software to all of those locations

Deploying real-time software simultaneously in multiple locations is not as easy as what you think. The whole application was developed in .NET Framework 2.0. The team chose to introduce Microsoft technology into a Linux environment. Cricinfo now has a Windows Server 2003 running in its data centre. This, combined with SQL Server 2000, provides the communications centre for the system. The scoring software itself employs Smart Client technology, built with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Tom Gleeson, one of the owners of Cricinfo, says

We now have an option that allows users to query particular wickets or what type of balls Shane Warne bowled when Flintoff hit a four. You can really drill down and analyse the data. It’s relatively simple in terms of what the site is capable of but from a user point of view it adds a great deal of value to the site

Cricinfo now has a database that stores information about each and every match that is being played, such as who, where they’re playing, as well as historical data on every international game that has been played since 1970. Gone are days when web used to be mere pages. It’s all about streams, syndication, real-time entities, and some finest RSS technologies now.

"Its raining here! Lol"
"I'm bored.. lol"
"My sister ate my burger.. lol"
"LOL!! It sounds really great to hear that.." Honestly, its not. In fact, its totally freaking me out!

It all started when Usenet, a worldwide distributed internet discussion system, was using the abbreviation LOL to express a textual, emphatic expression of laughter. The abbreviation then spread pandemic and became a regular, universal word in the english language.

An analysis of Laccetti and Molsk in their essay entitled "The Lost Art of Writing" states that "Unfortunately for these students, their bosses will not be 'lol' when they read a report that lacks proper punctuation and grammar, has numerous misspellings, various made-up words, and silly acronyms". David Crystal, a linguist, rhetorically questions "How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL?". It is indubitably true!

You can call it as a brand new variety of language emerging or cool language stuff or even expressiveness and richness of the language but the usage of it in business correspondence or corporate world won't be so LOL.