In 2009, Hien Thuc released Portrait 17, a Trinh Cong Son’s songbook. With fancy electric beats and slick r & b flavors, the album showed that Hien Thuc lacked the experience to take Trinh’s music to its fullest. Her new Trinh’s release, Thien Su, however, marks a sea change.

What a tremendous improvement in just two years. Hien Thuc has learned the essence of simplicity and the art of phrasing Trinh’s lyrics. On “Vuon Xua,” she sings with just an acoustic strumming guitar courtesy of Tran Thanh Phuong. The spared, intimate accompaniment allows her to articulate Trinh’s words. “Ru Doi Da Mat” is another excellent track with minimal orchestration. The superb arrangement provides her the space to pour out her heart without hitting the high register.

“Goi Ten Bon Mua” is one of Trinh’s most covered tunes, but the new-age mix makes Hien Thuc’s version stands out. The blending of sixteen-stringed zither (dan tranh) melodic lines and subtle electric rhythm is so damn irresistible. The producer also weaved some traditional folk chords into the break. Arranger Huyen Trung has quite an ear for exotic sounds and lush strings. “De Gio Cuon Di” has an elegant, tasteful classical orchestration and the track would have been even better if she had performed the song solo rather than with Duc Tuan.

With effortless flow, classy arrangements and the ability to dig deeper into the lyrics, Hien Thuc has found her own voice in Trinh’s music rather than a duplication of Khanh Ly, Trinh Vinh Trinh or Hong Nhung. She definitely is bringing a fresh new air to the Trinh’s timeless tunes. If there is one thing Hien Thuc can to improve, it has to be her breath control.

We visited a very closed friend of our family who lived next to us in Vietnam. She’s my sister age. She and her husband speak Vietnamese, Chinese and English. They have four kids and they all speak English and Chinese, but no Vietnamese.

One of my cousins married a Chinese woman. He speaks Vietnamese, Chinese and English. They have two kids and they both speak English and Chinese, but no Vietnamese.

You probably get my point already. I know many many Vietnamese couples who English aren’t so good, yet their kids speak only English. What is going on here? Are we not teaching our kids Vietnamese?

We try our best to speak only Vietnamese to Dao, but he spends most of his day at daycare speaking English. For now he uses both languages. If we teach him something first, he would remember it. For instance, he would say “ech” whenever he sees the picture of a frog rather than “frog.” On the other hand, no matter how many times I said “con voi” to him, he would only say “elephant” first when he sees image of an elephant.

Fortunately, one of the teachers at the daycare is Vietnamese and so they both talk in Vietnamese. His assigned teachers would say to us that whenever Dao and Ms. Tam talk they have no idea. At times, he mixed both languages and confused the heck out of his teachers, but they are very encouraging about him speaking Vietnamese.

My goal is to teach him Vietnamese. So if you have successfully teach your kids Vietnamese, please share your tips. We have to teach our kids to learn their native language.

I love the way kids communicate. They get straight to point. Let me give a few examples. We visited my mom this weekend. Early Saturday morning, Eric, my little six-year-old nephew, came into the room I was sleeping in and lay down next to me. I turned toward him and he started to cough. So here’s our little conversation:

Me: “You have a cold?”
Eric: “No, it’s your breath.”
Me: “My breath makes you cough?”
Eric: “Yes, your breath smells bad.”
Me: “Thanks, Eric!” (laughed)
Eric: “You’re welcome.”

A few minutes later he looked at me. Our conversation went on.

Eric: “Your nose-holes are big.”
Me: “How big?”
Eric: “As big as a cow.”

I guess I need to start saving up money to get a nose job. Anybody needs a web site?

My little boy who is almost two years old is even a tougher critic than his dad. Whenever I started to sing, he would wave his hand and protest, “No nhac” (no music). There goes my dream of becoming a singer.

I am pleased to announce the new launch of Writerhead …with Kristin Bair O’keeffe. This is the second project I get to work with Kristin, the talented writer. Two years ago I created a web site for Kristin’s first novel Thirsty and we both were very happy with the project. So when she approached me to turn her static site into a vibrant, dynamic blog, I didn’t hesitate.

Before I even gave Kristin an estimate, she already had all the contents ready for me. I wish all my projects could begin this way. Kristin also knew exactly what she wanted: simple but bold. As you can see from the site, you can’t get any bolder than a big, bold persimmon masthead with an incredible amount of text. My first instinct was that it’s too much text for a site description, but then I didn’t want to take it out after I see the playfulness of it. That’s what making the site stands out.

Kristin wants the ability to update the entire site herself; therefore, WordPress is the perfect tool for this project. The theme is based on “Toolbox: An HTML5 WordPress Starter Theme.” The theme is styled with semantic HTML5, but I modified the codes a bit to incorporate HTML5 Boilerplate. I tried to stay closed to “Toolbox”‘s structure as much as I can so Kristin can add new widgets or create new menu item without me going into the codes. I relied mostly on CSS to jazz up the look and feel. I also used CSS media queries to make the layout responsive. CSS3, HTML5 and WordPress make me love what I do.

Writerhead is truly a rewarding project to me. Even though I digged into these new technologies with Visualgui.com, Writerhead allows me to see WordPress really works. With Visualgui.com, I customized almost everything so it is very specific for my own needs, but Writerhead is much more flexible since I have to design with other users in mind.

So thanks Kristin for the opportunity. I hope you’ll enjoy using the site as much as I have enjoyed designed and developed it.

By the way, Kristin will open a personal essay workshop online. So if you’re interested in improving your writing skills, check out her classes.

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.