First, I want to apologize for the last six months of grief the site has caused many of you as we have been working through our software issues. As the owner, regardless of my best intentions, I alone am ultimately responsible for the site's poor performance since the last changes. Even if I didn't do the design work, those who did it were chosen by me. Given my performance to date, I want to add how much I appreciate those who have stuck by the site, or at least indicated a desire to return once the issues are ironed out. I owe a huge debt to those who have gone even further to encourage me and thank me for the work. Amazingly, the site continues to have very strong traffic in spite of some of the busy posters dropping off. Unfortunately, this site has cost me dearly, personally and financially, and I probably would not have taken it on if i knew then what I know now. That said, I'm not a quitter so I'm sticking with it until the site is everything I can make it. I know how important nearly two decades of horseshoeing information is to the farrier and horse owner communities and I know I am responsible for restoring the site's reputation and performance. And I will continue to work in that direction.

Next, I wanted to talk about where we are at and where we are going. We have just completed many major software updates to the main programs that run the site. You will see some minor changes, like the Preview button and some icon changes and stuff like that but much of the behind the scene machine has been changed to fix known bugs. One that "may" now be fixed is the infamous cookie problem (where after so many visits to the site your browser crashes when trying to access the site and you get a bad request or some similar error). Since our upgrade, Alex (Aleroinc) and I have tried to reproduce the problem but have not been able to get it to fail. We, of course, do not have all of your browser/hardware/operating systems to test so just because it is seemingly fixed doesn't mean it is fixed but it's worth trying. It is important to clear your old cookies/cache for the site because if you already have a cookie set from the old software it will crash eventually if you don't log out from time to time. To preempt the "don't blame the users" mob that usually starts lighting their torches right about now, let me say all prior issues with the site were the fault of the site's cookie management and not the users' browsers. But, the only way to get folks back on the site when these errors occur is to clear their cookies. When I ask you to clear cookies it is solely to get you back on the site (and in the current case to test a software change) and is not an attempt to deflect blame for the site's issue. So please try it again, with a fresh start/login after your cookies and cache are cleared.

In addition we have looked at changes to other platforms (software programs) but all have issues for us due to our front-end needing joomla for the articles and such, or the large albums and individual photo collections, as well as other issues. Anyway, no developer could guarantee success with other forum packages so we have pressed on with the hope that Kunena and Joomla would solve their issue (to be fair there are also some non-joomla/kunena parts, such as the template for example, that could be to blame but no one has ever been able to pinpoint what exactly was causing our issues).

There is one other, perhaps long shot, solution we are pursuing in parallel. A completely built from scratch site. No joomla, no kunena, no commercial products involved. A completely custom product. This is a very complicated solution that will take time and I am given an 85% chance of success so, for now, we will leave it at that. As an alternative outcome, if the custom forum is just too big to develop, we could use the custom designed program for the front end and then embed new forum software in it that does not run under joomla. This would allow us to use other forum software like some of you have heard positive things about from our farrier/software gurus. Either way, my goal is to eventually move away from joomla that I didn't care for in the beginning and certainly don't appreciate after this year.

That is where we are and where we are trying to go. Thanks for your support.

Steve, I just popped in to see what was going on with the folks and the site. I haven't been on the computer much in the last couple of months because I am building a blacksmith shop for myself and others in the area to visit and use.
I am sorry this site has been such a head ache for you and the site over the past year, but i know you and Alex will find success down the road.
You have a great product here and it is so benificial for those who will take the time to read its contents and suggestions by some of the best farriers around. Hang in there everythiong good comes to those who wait.

I will be posting again soo and new poetry also. just needed a break from the computer for a while.

Also the two buckles will be coming along soon as it is begining to cool down here in Texas.

Bruce Matthews
Southeast Texas Drafthorse Shoeing

Well Steve, sometimes you think the grass is greener on the other side, but then you find out it's astroturf.

I thought the first right thing you did was getting Alex on board. Wishing you good luck