Like the title says SMF Forum version 1.1 RC3 is finally out. 

Over the next couple of days I will be installing and testing this version alongside the Arcade mod.  Assuming everything goes well I should be updating the live site toward the end of the week. 

It would be really great if I could say that I am not anticipating problems, but I am!  The Capes site is a highly modified installation of three different packages that I rely on to play nicely together….but sometimes I don't get my wish!

Still, it is another opportunity to learn something new about these packages and for that reason I look forward to it.

You can download SMF Forum here:   http://www.simplemachines.org/download/

And SMF Arcade is available from here:   http://www.smfarcade.net/

Before applying for Adsense I was extremely curious about how the adverts were chosen.  Google obviously reveals little about this process, as it might come open to abuse by the unscrupulous and so only some general guidelines were available to me. 

The most common piece of advice for getting appropriate adverts was to keep the article tightly focussed on the subject.

The use of keyword stuffing is to be avoided (as Google will penalise you for this), but a reasonably high keyword count should occur naturally if you are writing in a focussed manner. so this is not really an issue.  Keeping the article focussed helps the search engine decipher what your page is about and should enable it to turn up relevant advertising more often.

What I did not realise at the time, but I have found out since by trial and error, is that the whole of the site is indexed for Adsense content, not just the page in question.  I found this out as I strayed into politics in some recent blog posts about the war in Lebanon (the media spin was annoying me).  As I have now mentioned certain key words I am now receiving adverts for language courses, bible instruction, intelligence (spy/security) training and more!  These adverts are being served on the index page of the site, nowhere near the original blog post.  The main site is a gaming site and so these adverts are very much off message, but I only have myself to blame. 

In order to solve the problem of innappropriate content my initial reaction was to delete the offending arcticles.  If they are no longer present then they can no longer be searched and indexed, right?  Well, unfortunately Google caches searched pages and so there is no guarantee that deleting the pages would help.

The original idea behind this blog was to help others avoid my mistakes and so I will leave the articles up for the time being.  The idea behind this is to try and find out if refocussing my posts about the original subjects of web development and gaming eventually cause the none relevent adverts to disappear.  Hopefully the Adsense engine will update with the more recent content and these adverts will fade over time 

If this policy is successful I will post here to say so. 

In the meantime I will take this as encouragement to stick to my knitting!

As a child I supported them, then as a teenager the faith waned a little.  In my early 20s the interest waxed and waned, but now I am back and I might as well admit it publically!  Liverpool Football Club has been an interest of mine since the days of Keegan/Clemence et al.  Somehow it didn't seem right to discuss matters football (yes, thats right…football, not "soccer"!) on a website devoted to superheroes and online games but I guess this blog is as much about personal interests as anything else and so in it goes.

It is certainly easier to watch Liverpool play these days.  Not just because of cup success over recent years, it is more about playing style, or at least it is for me.  After watching years of sit back, defend and counter attack under Houllier the new attacking, high tempo, passing side is a breath of fresh air.  Not to unduly criticise Houllier, he was a good servant to the club and achieved much, it is just that football under his direction was mostly safe and dull.

Liverpool played tonight and won 2:1 against Maccabi Haifa. First 70 minutes weren't thrilling but the last 20 were pretty good.  It was great to see both Bellamy and Gonzales score as they are both new to the team.  No media frenzy about how long it will take them to score their first goal, unlike the Peter Crouch affair.  You could almost hear the hacks in Fleet Street crying into their pints of mild.  Now they will have to find another way to have a pop at Liverpool.

Rafa has been a great manager so far and has changed almost everything for the better.  It truly is a "Rafalution", as so many have coined it.  It is therefore satisfying to watch his recent signings perform so well.  Bellamy looked sharp and Gonzales got maybe three touches of the ball in the short time he was on and scored with one of them!

Unfortunately Zenden looked a little off the pace both physically and mentally, most probably due to his lack of actual match play over recent times.  No doubt he will improve with a few more matches behind him.  It was no surprise when he was substituted.  Similarly, Johnny Riise had a poor game and had the legs ran off him by his opposite number.  Again, this is a shame as he has been a stalwart for Liverpool over recent years and I hope that his season improves.

Good luck to Liverpool for the coming season.  Do Merseyside proud lads!

For those of you that are interested in Liverpool and think that you can do a better job than Rafa, the official Liverpool website is carrying a link to a fantasy football game at the moment. 

Time to put your money where your mouth is? 

http://liverpoolfc.fantasyleague.com/