S28 Files for update

Howdy all!

I apologize for being almost a month late for an update.  Suffice it to say, the days leading up to my wife's surgery and the surgery itself took more out of me than I expected.  There even was a minor complication that caused us to stay 4 more days in Houston than we intended, but I am happy to say that everything is going well so far.

My wife's surgery was a success, and she was quickly feeling better than before surgery.  She still has to take things easy for another 3 weeks...which of course means I've got more on my plate than usual as I have to help her around the house.  But we are very happy with the results we're seeing already, despite the 20% chance her condition could return.  So, we still appreciate prayers that she continues to recover and things go in our favor.

She has a separate, unfortunately unrelated, condition that we are still working on by changing her diet and severely restricting it.  We were hoping these 2 conditions were connected, so they'd both be fixed at the same time.  But it looks like we still have a little work to do.  Once again, still happy with the results we're already experiencing.  :-)


Now for LRO...

As far as updating LRO goes, regarding getting updates automatically, that isn't going to happen anytime soon.  I could NOT fix my old computer, and so I had to buy a new one.  I am considering subscribing to Microsoft Office so I can work on LRO again, but at this time, I don't have time anyways to work on it.  Not to mention, I really don't want to spend even more money at this time...

So...here's what I did for our own congregation.  I was able to adjust our S-28 form to meet the current updated form.  Now...I didn't have time to be meticulous and update it to my satisfaction (in other words...perfect), but it was updated close enough.  The only possible (and I stress possible) issue with the update would be with "other year" Bound volumes, Yearbooks, stuff like that, being counted in the wrong place.  Every other book, brochure, tract, should be fine.


Here's how you can get the update

Download the 3 files from the following link (after going to the link, RIGHT-click and click "Download" for each file):

https://app.box.com/s/535h1quupggkyzfnf9h2xxl84cgvjx0j

Please DO NOT change anything in the files.  If you change anything in the files, I cannot guarantee the update will work right.  Please download all 3 files to the location where LRO is installed on your computer.

NOTE: The actual LRO file is not on your desktop, that's just a shortcut.  You can right-click on the shortcut, and then click on "Properties"

Now click on "Open File Location" (or whatever your flavor of Windows says).

Drop all 3 of the files you downloaded into the LRO folder.  Just like this:

Once the files are there, you can open LRO and navigate to the Inventory Management screen.  From there, click on "Build Mock S-28 Form".

And then at the bottom, click on "Download S-28 Updates".

After answering the prompts, your S-28 form should now be updated.


If there are any issues or questions, please let me know.

To all my Dear users...

I know things have been pretty quiet around here, and updates are almost non-existent.  And now, there's a new S-28 form available (on JW.org).  And rightly so, people are wondering...will LRO get the update?

The short answer?  Probably...but it may will involve a little work on your part.

So now you might be wondering what's been going on with me?  Why would there be trouble with the update?  Well, here's the long answer:

Unfortunately...all updates for LRO are currently broken.  Since I offer LRO to everyone for FREE, I choose to use only FREE methods of hosting my update files.  This severely limits my options.  As you might suspect, the FREE methods don't tend to stick around...so I chose 3 different sites to use for LRO's updates.  ALL 3 ARE BROKEN!

So...that means I need to publish a new version of LRO, which I haven't done in over 2 years, and the computer that I used to build it on is broken.  So that will make me take a bit more time than I would normally have needed.  Now...I have to:

1. Get another computer set up with my programming environment
2. Get VirtualBox set up with multiple versions of Windows/Office for testing purposes.
3. Get alternate update sites set up.
4. Remember how to compile everything for deploying.

As if that were not enough, my wife will be having a major surgery in 2 weeks!  We will be spending a week in Texas as "vacation", but we may end up just staying at the hotel the whole time...depends on how much pain she's in.  If that happens, I may use that time to try to fix up LRO's update system.  But I cannot promise anything about that...I probably won't have the best mindset to be doing coding...

Now with that being said, my wife's health has been a roller coaster ride for the past 5 years. But for the past year or so, it's been more on the downside than up.  Which means in addition to my full-time job and being an Elder, I also have to do more housework, since my wife is in pain half of the time and unable to do things around the house.  So I hope that explains why my circumstances for the past year have made it very difficult to even look at my own program.  :-(

Thankfully, I have 2 fail-safes in place in the event that I would be unable to update my LRO program:

1. If I don't have enough time to fix LRO up the right way, I can at least provide an Excel spreadsheet that everyone else can import into LRO.  This will take some work and understanding on your part.  But it will be MUCH quicker than trying to fix LRO's update system.
2. I provided a way for LRO's users to update the S-28 manually.  Hopefully it won't come to this, but you can certainly update the S-28 form in LRO yourself.  Message me if you need help with finding this tool.

I certainly do not want to leave anyone hanging, but my current circumstances do not allow me to do much other than what I need to do on a daily basis.  I will provide some kind of direction for everyone by April 18th.  The 19th is my wife's surgery.  Please keep us (Jeremy & Skye Zoulin) in your prayers.  It will be much appreciated!


Warm Christian greetings,
Jeremy