Excluding category from the index-page revisited

Hi,

I use this code to exclude a certain category from the index page loop:

<?php if (in_category('4') && is_home() ) continue; ?>

However, this doesn’t stop WP from counting posts and displaying less of them if there is one of them among the first few which are shown completely.

I found this line of code as a replacement which should exclude that category and also exclude it from being counted:

<?php if ( !(in_category('4')) || !is_home() ) { ?>

Unfortunately this gives me an error. Do I need to modify this code yet in some way?

I tried the query_posts tag, but this interfered with several plugins I use to manipulate category display.

I also am guessing that I didn’t find the hack mentioned here: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/The_Loop#Exclude_Posts_From_Some_Category