Thai Chau is apparently very old school. His new release, Bai Tinh Ca Cho Em, is what you would expect from the man with the cool, ageless baritone: good old time ballads that either grooves you or gives you nostalgia.

The album kicks off with Khanh Bang’s “Sau Dong,” one of the Vietnamese’s favorite party jams. Thai Chau shows off his flawless breath control and slick, effortless flow for the cha-cha-cha beat. The next track, Nguyen Anh 9’s “Ai Dua Em Ve,” slows down the vibe, but on Lam Phuong’s “Co Ua” is when he gets real sentimental with the support of Ngoc Anh whose smoky contralto is a perfect match to Thai Chau’s charming baritone. Their rendition of “Co Ua” is as hypnotic as the version of Don Ho and Lam Thuy Van. In fact, their version could be even more intoxicating if the programmed drums were left out and just let the piano backs up their vocals.

On Manh Chuong’s “Thuong Hoai Ngan Nam,” Thai Chau sings like a bird with a broken wing. He glides up and down the octave in such an easygoing effort. Sadly, the mechanical production brings the song down a notch. On the other hand, his up-tempo duet with Loan Chau on Duc Huy’s “Yeu Em Dai Lau” is horrendous, as if an old man trying to take a young girl to the club. The dance remake of Anh Bang’s “Nhung Tam Hon Co Don” is also horrible thanks to Back Kieu whose falsetto on the high register makes the song unbearable.

Bai Tinh Ca Cho Em is without a doubt a throwback to the good old time. Sure, Thai Chau’s voice doesn’t really need any update, but he needs to take his beat to a higher level. Thuy Nga’s robotic productions simply do him no good. They are a waste of his soul and talent. He should definitely put more thoughts and investment into the arrangements.

Kara Lynn, a dear friend and former designer at Vassar, passed away last Friday after a long, heroic battling with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Kara was an awesome designer, a loving mother, a technologist and a fighter.

I met Kara through an interview for the web design position at Vassar College. At the time the group was made up of four women; therefore, one of the questions was, “How do you feel about working with four women?” Although I didn’t know if I said the right thing, but I replied without hesitation, “I love it.” Kara lid up a big, beautiful smile and that was the moment I knew I wanted to be part of the team.

On my first day at the job, I was assigned to create a welcome back homepage banner. I wanted to come up with something nice to make a good impression, but I was stuck and didn’t know what to do. I came to Kara and she immediately gathered a number of people in the office and we headed to the front building to make a photo shoot. Kara helped me cropped the photo from the waist down just to show feet walking into the building as a welcome back banner. The banner was not approved because it was showing some butts so we went back and cropped out the butts as well. That was when I began to learn about Kara’s sense of humor. Working with her and absorbing her elegant design helped me out tremendously. I had many fond memories of Kara. She was strong, independent, articulate and very artistic.

When she took her maternity leave to give birth to her adorable Aiden, Kara never returned to work even though everything in her office remained the way it was when she left. Later when I found out that she was diagnosed with ALS and her blog about that topic, I followed her writing. Her personal accounts, particularly on her daily struggles with everyday life, broke my heart. Sometimes her words almost put me to tears. She went through a lot and life didn’t even give her a break. She not only fought for her life, but also for those in similar situation. She raised the awareness of the disease and challenged insurance companies for speech-impairment remedy.

Rest in peace, Kara. You will always be missed.

Truc Lam and Truc Linh’s Con Duong Mau Xanh is a perfect example of how not to make old songs sound new. The Truc sisters try to give Ha Huyen Chi and Tran Trinh’s “Le Da” a fresh makeover with a mid-tempo production. They ended up taking the soul out of the tune. Likewise Do Le’s “Sang Ngang” gets an electric cover that sounds as flat as the sister’s ab. The good thing is that Do Le’s so-damn-depressing lyrics no longer make you want to kill yourself. The beat makes you want to dance instead. As a result, the song is not so miserable after all. The sisters also turned Lam Phuong’s “Thanh Pho Buon” into a happy city with the upbeat production.

One of the advantages of making these sentimental tunes into party jams is to mask the sister’s karaoke singing and limited range of less than an octave. The slow songs like Trinh Nam Son’s title track, Truong Sa’s “Xin Con Goi Ten Nhau” and Lam Phuong’s “Phuc Cuoi,” show that the sister’s are more suitable for baring their skin on videos than baring their soul in the songs. They understand the art of seduction much more than the art of interpretation.

Ho Trung Dung has a warm, charming voice, a tad too nice for my taste. In his new release, Hanh Phuc, Ho Trung Dung sings most of his own tunes. Like many Vietnamese singer-songwriters, he suffers the same symptoms: uninspired lyrics with lifeless melodies.

“Khi Nang Chua Day” is sentimental and romantic, but the rest of the tracks also carry similar pop-hook formula. The spotless, mechanical arrangements aren’t doing his clean, good-boy voice any favor either. His songs are so consistent that there are hardly any harmonic changes. “Doi Khi” and “Tinh Khong Muon Mang” stand out simply because he brought Thanh Ngoc and Ha Linh in for the duets.

“Never Too Late” is included at the end as if there’s a new rule that Vietnamese singers have to include an English track on their album. It’s not a bonus. It’s a bogus.

Mai Hoa has a husky contralto that is reminiscent of Le Thu without the pitch issues. In Duong Cam, she covers eight extremely well-known ballads like “Le Da,” “Thu Quyen Ru” and “Hoai Cam.” Mai Hoa brings nothing new to these tunes other than her distinctive voice. As a result, the album becomes boring and predictable by the third track. With such dark, hypnotic vocals, she could do much more than that such as turning these songs into soulful blues rendition.

Biola University’s undergrad web site is strikingly beautiful. The background illustrations are fun, engaging and surprisingly not distracting at all. The color-coded navigation adds a nice touch to the design as well as enhances the user experience by differentiating the sections of the site. Each individual tab invites visitors to click through and explore. The content is organized and straightforward. Scrolling through the main pages, which divided into several segments, feel like scanning through brochures. The design is not only well-executed but also speaks to its targeted audience: the young undergrads.

Out of the box, HTML5 Boilerplate, “the professional badass’s base HTML/CSS/JS template for a fast,” robust and future-proof site, is quite overwhelming. Before diving into the files or giving up, I highly recommend watching Paul Irish’s 40-minute video, in which he walks through the codes line by line, and you’ll see all the awesomeness of the boilerplate.

RxBx Music who produces Thanh Ha’s forthcoming The Evolution of Thanh Ha teases fans with two new tracks “Anh Thi Khong” and “60 Nam Cuoc Doi.” They both sound pretty fresh and promising. Listening to the preview, however, I am a bit disappointed that the records are all over the place. I’ll definitely share my thoughts once I get my hand on the album and spend more time with it.

CBS News’ Betty Nguyen traveled to her birth country of Vietnam to distribute humanitarian aid to those struggling to survive. You go, Betty!

Last year before Christmas, I was at Lang Van music store in Eden Center looking for some Vietnamese children DVDs for my son and overheard a guy who was at least my age or older eagerly asking the saleslady for Minh Tuyet’s latest album. With excitement, he told her that Minh Tuyet’s newest album should have been released on that day. He appeared to be disappointed when the lady told him that the album was not in store yet.

Over the weekend, my in-laws took a road trip to Foxwoods Casino. I played Minh Tuyet’s Xin Loi Anh in the car and my sister-in-law’s husband who came to the U.S. when he was two and could only understand limited Vietnamese commented on the title opening track, “It sounds like a perfect Chinese pop song.” In one sentence, he basically summed up Minh Tuyet’s collection of bubble gum duets that comes with many artificial flavors ranging from sour (Bang Kieu) to tender (Tran Thai Hoa) to everything in between. They complement well with Minh Tuyet’s sweetener vocals.

From the pure-Chinese “Du Am Tinh Ta” (featuring Trinh Lam) to bittersweet-ballad “Vi Ngot Doi Moi” (featuring The Son) to the over-sentimental “Bai Ca Ky Niem” (featuring Quang Le), Xin Loi Anh is the bubble gum du jour. The melodies are catchy and the story lines are shallow enough for everyone to get hooked. Minh Tuyet is indeed a bubble gum pop queen with a long-lasting flavor.