Giles Colborne’s Simple and Usable is irresistible, specially for a minimalist like myself. Colborne argues, “When something is simple, it looks effortless.” He gives examples of Flip video camera and Apple products and explains how simple user experience makes them stand out.

After setting out a vision for why we should design for mainstreamers rather than expert customers, Colborne lays out four key strategies for simplicity: remove, organize, hide and displace. He uses a DVD remote control to illustrate how an over-complicated gadget could be simplified as he points out, “The secret to creating a simple user experience is to shift complexity into the right place, so that each moment feels simple.”

For anyone who looks into creating user-focused experiences for web, mobile and interactive platforms, Simple and Usable is a must read.

Quynh Hoa’s latest release, Romance, is thankfully not an English album sung by a heavily accented Vietnamese singer. The title suggests the romantic vibe of Ha Noi since most tracks, including Tran Tien’s “Ha Noi Ngay Ay,” Nguyen Vinh Tien’s “Thu Ha Noi” and “Cafe Ha Noi,” were written about the city.

Romance kicks off with Nguyen Cuong’s “Vuon Em Dem Qua No Mot Canh Mai.” The track begins with a few hypnotic electric bass lines then follows by sweet, melodic Vietnamese flute. As soon as Quynh Hoa’s sultry, smoky contralto joins in, you know you’re in for a fantastic ride. Tran Tien’s “Ha Noi Ngay Ay” gets a gorgeous electric makeover complemented with savory keyboard touches and sensuous saxophone licks. What makes the track stands out is Quynh Hoa’s effortless delivery no matter how fancy the arrangement gets. Her low notes in particular are so damn seductive, noticeably on the piano-only accompaniment of Nguyen Vinh Tien’s “Thu Ha Noi.”

The spellbind breaks when she tries to tough up her pipe on Nguyen Cuong’s “Bien Dau Buon Den The.” Her flow is stilted and her vocals are rough as if she wanted to sound like a badass. The good thing is that she pulls back on Nguyen Vinh Tien’s “Ha Noi Cafe” and curls her phrasing like smoke around the strumming acoustic guitar. The album closes out with a striking orchestration of contemporary folks on Nguyen Cuong’s “Ho Bien.”

Romance is a much needed change in the endless repetition and unimaginative direction of the current Vietnamese pop scene. Mad props to Minh Dao for some fresh arrangements as well.

In retrospect, I have spent more than a decade building my online portfolio. Visualgui.com has evolved over the years, but the primary goal remains the same: to showcase my work. This site played an important role in my career and landed 95% of my client projects. For web designers, an online portfolio is a requirement. For beginners, creating an online presence could be a daunting task. If you’re in that situation and don’t know where to begin, Ian Clazie’s Creating Your Digital Portfolio is for you. With practical tips and professional examples, this book is an invaluable guide for creating an effective online portfolio. In addition to the book’s advice on the visual design, I strongly recommend that you pay attention to the codes as well. Particularly for web designers, clean, well-structured markups under the hood are as important as the striking display.

In “Gaddafi’s Endgame: How Will the U.S. Get Out of Libya?,” Fareed Zakaria points out that Obama is not willing to let the U.S. lead the War in Libya. He writes:

The Obama Administration made clear that other countries had to be invested in the Libyan operation, which meant they had to offer public support and military or economic assistance, before the U.S. would get involved.

Good strategy, Mr. President!

Any CSS book written by Eric Meyer is worth a read. Smashing CSS is no exception. Meyer’s expertise in CSS and clear explanation help clear up technical obscure of CSS selectors like specificity, the order of multiple classes, ID vs. class, outline vs. borders and substring attribute selection. Smashing CSS is not for beginners. Most of the tips assumed that readers are already familiar with CSS and HTML.

With the growing popularity of CSS3, I am a bit surprised that Meyer still covers techniques like CSS Sprites, Sliding Doors, Complexspiral, Pre-CSS3 Rounded Corners, Faux Columns and One True Layout. I was hoping that he would delve more into the new CSS3 techniques. Nevertheless, I have learned things that I haven’t realized before like ideas for using attribute selectors to style types of links.

This morning, I had to carry Dao on my right and his lunchbox and umbrella with my left. When we stopped at the daycare door, I had to put him down so I could get my member card out of my pocket. He whined and wanted me to pick him up. (This is partly my faulty because I always carry him in instead of let him walk in himself. I need to get in and out quickly to get to work. Sometimes I have to run with him in my lap and he loves it.)

The security lady who Dao greets every morning, said to him, “I know the drill. You want daddy to carry you all the way to class, right?” Dao nodded and replied, “Right.” Me and the security lady both laughed our head off.

Since we were a bit late this morning, Dao’s class had already gone to the romper room. He stood outside the door and didn’t want to come in after I took off his jacket and his shoes. Eden, the cute girl in his class, came to the door and put out her arms. Dao ran right in and gave her a hug. It was so cute.

This photo takes me down to memory lane. I can still recall the architecture of the school.

Truong Trung Hoc Nguyen Dinh Chieu is located between my house and my elementary school. To get back home, the fastest route was to cut through Nguyen Dinh Chieu. In order to do so, I had to either go through the dog hole (lo cho) or climb the fence. In first and second grade, I did the former. In third to fifth, I did the latter. Sometimes I was chased my security guards, but I don’t recall getting caught. If I did, all I had to say was, “sorry, I won’t do it again.”

In the summertime, a bunch of us from the neighborhood would walk together to the school to play soccer at these courts. That photo really reminds me of the good old days. I can still remember vividly the yellow plastic all I used to carry around.

Just like that and 20 years of my life have already gone by. Damn, time sure has flown by. Life sure is way too short.

If you haven’t already, head over Mozilla to download Firefox 4 to take advantage of its full HTML5 and CSS3 support.

If you haven’t already, check out hilarious video clips of Dao dances to “If You Happy and You Know It” and rocks to Thanh Ha’s tunes.

I really like the news addition of LinkedIn. It targets articles that are related to your profession. I joined a bunch of web-design related groups and reconnecting with people I have worked with in the past. LinkedIn is definitely a great social network for professionals, especially now that “LinkedIn Surpasses 100 Million Users.”

Blossom Kite Festival is this weekend. We’ll take Dao to the Monument. I am in the process of making a kite for him. Making a kite not only brings back my childhood memory, but it is also the only thing that I still remember how to do from my childhood. This should be fun.

In “The Science of Happiness and Potential,” Shawn Achor pointed out that if you write for three minutes about your positive experience once a day for thirty days, you’ll see 50% drops in doctor visits. Speaking of doctor visits, I have not visited a doctor for more than three years. I better find me a physician soon. In any rate, I will try to focus on positive experience when I blog rather than negative ones.

Another weekend went by. Didn’t do much, but was not relaxing either. Spent time with Duke and Dana and worked on a client project. Also did some work for GWSB. When I figure out something, I just can’t wait until Monday to do it. I might forget about it.

Yesterday, we went to Nordstrom and the real mannequins freaked me out. I was like, “damn they looked real” and one of them winked. What got me was that the real models was standing right next to the mannequins. Getting paid for standing still must be hard. I don’t think I can do it. I’ll either get itchy or I’ll begin to fart. But hey, that’s just me.

I am also reading a very good book by Jeremy Keith titled DOM Scripting. Man, he is such a great writer. Very clear and easy to understand. Speaking of books, the ones that I really want to read are mostly from George Mason, not from GW. The nice thing is that I can check out these books through the loan program. So if you’re a student or a staff member of any of the schools around the Metro area, you get access to books to all the colleges around here including Georgetown, American and Marymount. So big up to George Mason.

“Ba Oi!” Oh that’s Duke calling me to go upstairs to sleep with him. So peace out y’all. Hope you all had a nice, relaxing weekend.

Melancholy Baby shows that Jaimee Paul has got the blues. “I want a little sugar in my bowl / I want a little sweetness down in my soul,” Ms Paul whips out her bluesy pipes, intoxicating phrasing and turns Nina Simon’s classic into her own. Her version of Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’s “Big Spender” puts the Pussycat Dolls to shame with her sultry, shouting blues. She also puts her own spin on Bill Wither’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” and reinvigorated U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with a hypnotizing, bossa-nova flavor. With Beegie Adair’s tender, delicate touch on the piano, Ms gives me melancholy too on the title track.