Juan Valencia's website

Not only the great teachings and the technology are passed from generation to generation. Along with all of these, also comes the prejudices, the hatred and the social stratifications that were created along the way. Many times these were originated because of a desire of control, others because of pure greed, some because of fear, and some times because of a feeling of entitlement held by small groups of the population.

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Categories: Thoughts

I had a new experience in life yesterday, one which I never experienced before: the experience of being robbed. While the details are not important (I am perfectly fine), I am going to sound a little crazy but I am actually glad that it happened, in this way at least.

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Categories: Thoughts

Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing. Hellen Keller

This is very likely to be the shortest post in the history of this website, but I am completing the preparations to travel. If anyone from Chile reads this, I am looking forward to meet people who is into open source software to share experiences.

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Categories: Thoughts

I have to say that I am very concerned about the economy today, seeing that all the markets in the world fell today while the prediction was that the opposite would happen after a debt ceiling deal was reached in the United States. I didn't even have to visit Paul Krugman's blog, which I occasionally read, to get worried today. Of course, visiting his blog and seeing that he embedded a youtube video of the song "How can it feel this wrong?" didn't help. But I will try to keep the optimism, and I will continue working.

Economics is really complex, specially macroeconomics. I try to understand the concepts, with a fairly good rate of success, but it is still a very complex subject. I can't say to people "save every penny, live a frugal lifestyle and be happy" because if everyone actually did this, the economy would collapse as nobody would be buying anything. But it is difficult to resist the urge of save whatever can be saved seeing the volatility of the markets and the often misguided decisions by the policy makers in just about every country. On top of that, there is the issue of where to allocate the money so it doesn't lose its value, or more a where to invest it.

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Categories: Thoughts

I fight a merciless and endless war against a part of myself that is mediocre, ridden with self-doubt, and lazy. It always tries to stop me, it always tries to control me. It dominated me for many years. Years in which I lived a stagnant life with no future.

But the last years has been a journey of madness. After living in 8 different places in three different cities (4 after this website was started); after experiencing poverty, hunger and risks; and after facing every last one of my fears, including failure and loneliness, I found out that I wouldn't give up fighting, I found out that I still felt alive, probably more than I ever felt before. Not everything was bad, I also experienced my happiest and my most intense moments during these years. Even on the verge of desperation I ended up starting my website, when I couldn't pay for food anymore, leave alone for an Internet connection.

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Categories: Thoughts

Life is full of disappointments, broken plans and shattered expectations, and these can cause emotional reactions that lead to actions that we wouldn't normally do. Part of the growth of a person is learning how to deal with life's curve balls. It does sound very obvious, but that doesn't always make it easy, in the heat of the moment one feels the almost uncontrollable urge to do of the hook things. In my own personal experience, a stream of emotions cross my head, and all of them must be controlled.

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Categories: Thoughts

License change

Since yesterday, the contents of this website which are not attributed to others are given under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. Yes, I removed the NonCommercial clause, this means that you can take the contents of this website and make derivative works and sell them, provided that you give me proper attribution and that you distribute it under the same terms. I do hope that if someone other than me profits from the contents of this website, he or she would share some of that back as some form of donation, if only for ethical reasons, but I am aware that this is not necessary under this license. And, for a different license with different permissions you can always contact me and we could talk.

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Categories: Announcements, Thoughts

As I grow older, my perception of the world is constantly transforming. I would say that the world around me is transforming as well, but only part of it is changing. While the technology and the achievements of our civilization advance, the truth is that our civilization never changes. We are dealing with the very same issues that our ancestors faced: insatiable greed, endemic corruption, the desire of small groups of individuals to control the population, discrimination, selfishness, you name it. But, on top of this, we are facing new problems never faced before by previous generations: an overpopulation that is reaching unimaginable levels, which leads to hunger and even more disputes over the limited resources of our planet. And the unprecedented contamination of the planet.

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Categories: Thoughts

We only learn who we truly are when facing extraordinary difficulties and circumstances, this website is my way of showing, not to the world, and not to others, but to myself that I was not going to give up and sink into depression, which would eventually lead to regrets, but that instead I was going to sit down and create something, against my own desire of lay down motionless after a hard day of work, at the end of which I just felt hopeless and sometimes lonely. This website is the result of a battle that my will-power won against my exhaustion and against my own doubts and insecurities. A battle that every one of us have to fight, and that, sadly, many lose every day and cave in to any of the countless distractions that modern life have to offer.

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Categories: Thoughts

Contrary to popular opinion, I am not a robot (and I certainly can not use invisibility and teleportation, I am just sort of stealthy when I walk and usually people is very distracted). I am, as I am sure most people are, just a person who more often than not have no idea of what is going on with his life. I am also a very reserved person, I am not really into talking about (or writing about) my personal life, which is why this web site is ridden with technical how-to's, and chances are, that technical posts will continue being the predominant content of this website for the foreseeable future, although I have to admit that my foresight appears to be flawed since two years ago.

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Categories: Thoughts

I originally wrote this piece a few years back, but I believe that the principles still apply nowadays.

During my career I worked in different companies that are dedicated to the design and development of websites. On several occasions I was requested to add different features to commercial websites that even though I knew that they would be counterproductive, I had to add them anyway, as that was my job. Once I started freelancing, the truth is that things didn't change, only now the requests were being made directly to me by my clients, and even though I pointed out some of my concerns to clients with whom I had a good relationship, more often than not I had to do it anyway, after all it is the clients decision.

However, if you are reading this article, it's because you already have an interest to learn about common errors made in commercial websites. If you intend to turn your website into a good marketing tool, then here are some things that you should be aware of while having your website design.

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Categories: Thoughts

The greatest irony of my life, that which this words in your web browser address, was always the fact that even though I have been working in the field of web development of almost 12 years now, I didn't have a web site that I could call my own.

Why? It certainly wasn't a lack of technical knowledge, as I am very confident about my skills. Neither was the lack of time, there have been enough time to work on it during different periods of my life. It was because I idealized the end result.

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Categories: Thoughts