It seems it doesn't matter how big you are, it's the simple over-sights that catch you out. Logging on to my adsense account this evening I was presented with this security window warning me the certificate had expired. Looking at the details, it expired at 19:52:39 BST.



They may be worth billions, but they need to spend a few extra quid on someone to do the admin. I've emailed them to let them know; let's see if they reply.

Googlebot was here for it's daily visit this evening - nothing unusual there - but what was strange was a couple of the URLs it tried to spider - /atom.xmlindex.phpatom.xml & /atom.xmlindex.php. Whilst this site is written in php and does contain feeds (which are already indexed), both of these returned 404s as I don't have these files on this domain and never have had. Judging by the filenames, it was attempting to find an atom feed, a syndication feed similar to RSS.

I can only think of two reasons Googlebot should have tried to spider these addresses - either someone has manually submitted them to Google or it is trying new tricks to keep ahead of the competition. The former seems rather unlikely as it would be a complete waste of time, which only leaves the latter. They already have Google News, which syndicates stories from 4500 news sites; perhaps they are planning to do the same with blog feeds or maybe have a dedicated blog search. Could this see them splitting out blogs from the main index entirely? Probably none of these, but I'm going to keep an eye on the logs, and I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has had similar visits.

If you're looking for a reason to choose b2evolution over any other blogging software, then your search is over - the latest (beta) release contains a fantastic new feature, AntiSpam Deluxe. If you find yourself getting spammed, either via referers or in the comments, you can immediately delete all instances of the URL and instantly block it. Better still there is a central domain blacklist, so if you update regularly, via a single click, you can block spam before it reaches you.

How was Wordpress chosen as the official successor to b2? b2evolution has easy installation, straight-forward skinning and powerful features, what more can you ask for?

In the vain hope of making a bit of cash, I applied for Google's AdSense program. I wasn't sure I'd be accepted, as one of their program policies is that they don't generally accept personal pages. Well, it seems that the content must be just far enough away from their definition of a personal page, as this morning I received a 'Congratulations, you Adsense application has been approved' email from them.

Concious of not turning the site into a billboard, I've decided not to put the ads on the front page, and have so far only put them on the gallery pages. When I can work out how to do it in b2evolution, I may also put them on the permalink pages. I'm not looking (or expecting) to make a fortune from it, but enough to cover my hosting costs would be great, and anything over a bonus.

**UPDATE** 14/03/2004
Well I'll be damned if I can work out how to get the Adsense links to only display on certain pages, so they're going on all of them.

...according to some graffiti on the M25 between junctions 16 & 15. So someone, somewhere, is pissed off enough at Carl that they've taken the trouble to paint abuse at the side of a motorway. I'd love to know who wrote it, who Carl Moggford is and what he's been lying about, but I guess I'll never know.

As an outsider, I've never quite understood the way that American presidential elections are run. Why do the potential opposition candidates spend the first half of an election year attacking each other, drawing attention to each other's weaknesses? Surely this just helps the incumbent President? I just hope that whoever wins the race to be the Democrat candidate can go on to beat George Bush. I won't go in to why now, but take yourself here (Bush Watch) or here (CNN) to read more about the US President.

After seemingly ignoring him for the past year, President Bush has decided to go after Osama Bin Laden again; it's amazing what capturing a wanted man can do to your approval ratings. So, when will he be caught? The most likely dates are:

w/c Monday 19 July - Just in time to pour cold water on the Democrat national Convention.
w/c Monday 23 August - The week before the Republican Convention.
w/c Monday 18 October - Two weeks before the election. A pretty handy time to get an approval boost.

Other likely times are the weekends of any US holidays, so that's the weekends commencing Friday 28 May (Memorial Day), Friday 2 July (Independance Day), Friday 3 September (Labor Day) or Friday 8 October (Columbus Day).

My money is on the Memorial Day weekend. George Bush has received a lot of flack over his military service (or lack of it), and for not attending any of the military funerals of those killed in Iraq. I can hear him now: 'See, those that lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq didn't die in vain... the war on terrorism is being won' etc, etc. Or am I just a little too cynical?