The first two chapters of No Place To Hide capture the captivating interaction between journalist-author Glenn Greenwald, filmmaker Laura Poitras, and whistleblower Edward Snowden. Greenwald provides engaging details of his meeting with the source and his fighting with The Guardian to get the stories published. He doesn’t hold back on criticizing The Washington Post, The New York Times, and even the Obama administration. Reading this book makes me disappointed with Obama for the way he has been handling our privacy. Many thanks to Edward Snowden for putting his life on the line for us. He is truly a hero. I do hope he can come back to the US one day as a normal citizen.

Presenting beautiful type on your website nowadays could not be easier. With popular web font services such as Adobe Typekit, Google Fonts, and Hoefler & Co.’s Cloud.typography, getting web-ready typefaces to display on a site is as simple as adding one line of markup. Unlike the old days of web design when all you had to work with were a handful of default system fonts (Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, and Times New Roman), now you have thousands of fonts to choose from. However, with too many choices at your disposal, the process of selecting and combining typefaces can be time-consuming, overwhelming, and intimidating.

In this book, my goal is to prove that typesetting is fun and rewarding—not intimidating. Whenever applicable, I will share the process that helped me make the appropriate type selection for specific assignments in my work as examples for you to examine. Through my process, I hope to inspire you to discover your own. I will also cover CSS techniques that are related to typography and try to keep the technical aspects as simple as possible. You will have the chance to download all the example files, which I have uploaded to GitHub, to play with.

To be upfront, I am not a type expert. I learned typography through obsessive and extensive reading on the subject. I work full time as a web developer and designer at the George Mason University School of Law. Besides the free tuition, one of the perks of working at a university is having full access to the library. Mason has an excellent collection of books on typography and I have read most of them during the past three years. I even started acquiring my own collection with books that I want to keep for reference. Although most of the books I have read apply to print design, my true passion is the web. I started my web design profession early 2002, but the web has only made an exciting transformation within the past few years, thanks to the explosion of web fonts (and web font services to accommodate them). In spite of these fairly recent changes and emergences, typography remains a craft that is honed, nurtured, and acquired over time, with patience and practice. Join me in a journey to explore this craft.

Professional Web Typography will be launched next Monday.

Một vài hình ảnh tưởng niệm bốn mươi năm người dân Việt Nam chia đôi:

• Biển Nhớ
• Giờ Này Anh Ở Đâu
• Một Chút Quà Cho Quê Hương

Last week I decided to scoop up the domain name for my forth-coming book titled Professional Web Typography. I was planning on publishing it on this site, but I couldn’t resist prowebtype.com. I debated the pros vs. cons and consulted my wife. She insisted that I should so I have no reason to doubt.

After I made the purchase and made the announcement, a former colleague reminded me of Nice Web Type. I didn’t realize the coincident, but I am kind of glad because Tim Brown is my buddy, and he has taught me a great deal on typography.

The book will be launched on May 4th, which is next Monday. I am very excited about it. I am grateful for the helps from friends and some folks in the web industry.

Even with his beautiful baritone and delightful diction, Đình Bảo continues to disappoint by staying in his comfort zone. His new release, Cuộc Tình Đã Mất, has some enjoyable tracks such as the bluesy rendition of “Sa Mạc Tình Yêu,” the Latin-inflected “Chia Tay Tình Đầu” (Nguyễn Ngọc Thiện), and the charming cover of “Nổi Đau Muộn Màng” (Ngô Thụy Miên). Unfortunately, there are some bad choices, particularly the cheesy “Tuyết Rơi Mùa Hè” (Trần Lê Quỳnh) and the odd phrasing on “Tiếng Mưa Đếm” (Đức Huy). Then again, this is the best you could get out of a typical Thúy Nga product. He needs to break out on his own to move beyond what the big production can offer. While the music as usual, Thúy Nga has steps up its cover design for this album. The front cover has a simple design with decent typography and the back has a nice white space for the song tracks.

Took a vacation day off work to catch up chores at home. Dropped Đán off daycare in the morning. He cried a little and said, “Daddy, I am going to miss you.” What a charming kid. Went home and tidied things up a bit for a little birthday party for Đạo. He’s turning six tomorrow.

Then went over to Đạo’s school to read a little to his class. He picked Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman. The kids seemed to enjoy it. Then went home continued to clean up the house. It has been awhile. We have so much junks now. I still need to get rid of them.

Ate lunch and mowed the lawn. It’s the first cut of the season. Listened to lots of hip-hop while pushing the lawn mower. It actually feels good to see everything nice and neat. Enjoying a bit time alone until the kids come home.

It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow. Take Đán to his soccer in the morning and then take Đạo to his friend’s birthday party in the afternoon. His birthday party will start at four. My mom, cousins, nephews, and niece will visit us from Lancaster.

Got four bottles of Patrón silver last week in New Jersey. It was on sale for $40 a pop. One bottle will be for the party tomorrow and three will be reserved for family reunion in August. I am not an alcoholic, but I do like to take some Tequila shots at special occasion.

It’s already time to pick up Đạo from school. Enjoy the beautiful weekend everyone.

So I made it through thirty seven years of my life. I am still healthy and blessed with a loving family. In order to maintain these two important aspects, I have work to do. I used to believe that age ain’t nothing but a number, but I am having a reality check as I am heading to the big four zero.

Even though I don’t have any health problem yet, I need to make some changes in my diet and activity. I had been eating way too reckless lately and had not have the time to exercise. Started this week, I am cutting off sugar and trying out intermittent fasting. Goodbye cheesecake and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. For caffeine, I am replacing my coffee (with cream and sugar) with green tea. I stopped running for a while, but slowing getting back into walking. Let’s see how these new changes go.

As a husband, I am not always on my best behavior. I need to work harder on that. As a dad, I am not as patience as I should. I am making that change as well. I love you guys. Thank you for a nice little birthday dinner with spring rolls and jello.

Đán: Daddy, how do you spell Lego?
Me: L-E-G-O
Đán: No, it’s B-O-G-O.
Me: OK
Đán: How do you spell jelly bean?
Me: J-E-L-L-Y space B-E-A-N
Đán: No, it’s B-O-G-O.

Đán picks up spelling from Đạo who is in the process of learning how to read. Đạo asks us to spell any word he either just learned or wanting to learn. Although Đán also asks us to spell different words, his answer is always B-O-G-O.

These days when I drop Đán off at daycare. He always asked me for a kiss goodbye. I am so glad the crying is over. As I head back to my car to work, I saw a mother hiding outside the door listening to her kid’s screaming. It brought back so much memories.

Earl Sweatshirt tweeted about his new album: “WHEN YOU GET DONE LISTENING TO IT, LISTEN TO IT AGAIN, THATS WHY ITS 30 MINUTES NUMBNUTS.” It’s true. The album is surprisingly short. His rhymes are dark; his beats, self-produced, are unpolished; yet his stories are compelling. “Faucet” is an impressive track that has the early Wu Tang vibe to it. His opening bars sound so much like Method Man, but with a chilling menace. His tone is serious when he rhymes, “Fuck out my face while I’m thinking.” “DNA” is another gloomy track. His verse is superb. His flow is fluid and his message is clear: “Tell momma get a gun if I get too popular / I’m just being honest with it.” In the guest spot, his brother Na’kel contributed an emotional story of his friend who passed away. Earl is right in his tweet. This is an album to be experienced again and again to appreciate the grim storytellings and hypnotic beats.

Lately Đạo has been talking about death. I don’t know where or how he picked up on the subject, but I am sure that he doesn’t quite understand the concept yet.

Right before bedtime tonight, he came over and said to me, “I love you, daddy. I don’t want you to die.” I asked him why he thinks that way, but he didn’t answer my question.

About a week or so ago, I overheard a conversation between him and his brother. Somehow Đán talked about ông ngoại (grandpa) and Đạo said that “ông ngoại is not coming back.” He went on, “He is gone forever.”

A couple weeks ago, he showed me a calendar, which has a picture of H and his mom, and said, “Daddy, when H’s mom dies, he can look at this picture and he will remember his mom.” I tried to explain to him that it was not an appropriate thing to say, but he didn’t quite get it.

I asked my wife if he had mentioned to her anything about death and she said that he asked her, “Mommy, what will happen to me when you die?” I am not sure what she told him.

He seems to be curious about this subject. I am not quite sure how to explain to him the concept of death. Is he ready to learn about the truth of death?