Brian H. Prince

Last Tuesday, Michael and I went to CINNUG to present our Hands on Agile Practices talk. This talk has been received well before, especially in Dayton. Something was in the air this time though. It might of been the Pepsi Michael pushed on me before the session started (I don't normally drink soda.) The group was in a great mood, and we had a ball. The time flew by, and everyone was laughing and hollaring. CINNUG meets at a training center. In the room next door there was a trial session of their PM classes so that potential students could get a taste. I can only imagine that the room was filled with eager PM's to learn what these classes were like, and all they could hear was us carrying on in our room. I am sure many of them signed up for developer's classes that night. It was obvious developers have a lot more fun. It was also good to retain my track record of filling the room at CINNUG as well! :) All kidding aside, it was great to see the lights go on with some people...

I have been struggling to get some 278 (service approval) HIPAA messages in through my BizTalk box (using the accelerator). I was stumped. I received some sample messages from colleagues, and I still couldn't get the messages processed. Then Keith (on the BizTalk team at MS) gave me an idea. I started up Notepad2 to look at the messages, and turned on the encoding/hidden characters. Voila! The line endings were CRLF. Changed them all to LF, and everything started going through! Yeah! In hindsight, it always seems to be the smallest thing that is the hardest to solve. I remember that when I was first using C, I would spend hours to fix an issue, and it turned out to be a missing semi-colon. For future reference, here is a small sample (of course wrapping is all messed up): ISA*00* *00* *ZZ*7654321 *ZZ*1234567 *050101*1200*U*00401*000000054*0*T*:GS*HI*7654321*1234567*20050101*0717*141797357*X*004010X094A1ST*278*0002BHT*0078*11*20030721071727*20030721*071727HL*1**20*1NM1*X3*2*NYSDOH**...

I have occasionaly had to work on HIPAA related projects. I never had to get very deep in the spec (there always seemed to be others around to do that heavy lifting). Recently I have had time to install the accelerator for BizTalk, and work with it. First off, the accelerators are a group of software add-ons for BTS that added new functionality for specific markets. SWIFT, HIPAA, HL7, etc. The HIPAA package adds all of the related schemas from WPC ( THE company that builds and maintains the schemas), and an EDI engine that can process the edi formatted messages. This engine runs as a service on Windows Server, and can be configured to watch a FILE drop or an FTP drop for in/out going edi formed HIPAA messages. It will grab the message, validate it, find the appropriate party from BTS, and then convert it to XML and drop it in the message box. The engine will also handle the functional responses often needed in a HIPAA exchange. These message (997, etc.) are responses back to the sender...

I was nominated for an Microsoft MVP Award (Architect) many weeks ago. I always wanted to be an MVP, but never really thought I would get one. It always seemed like something other people got. Authors, freelancers, etc. And with limited awards to go around, I felt for a long time that my freelancer friends (remember I work for a not so souless corp, I ain't no freelancer) should get them only because MVP awards have a major effect on their personal marketing and visibility. But I was nominated, and I felt honored just for that. Then the weeks started to slowly slide by. I was on pins and needles the whole time. I would obsessively check my email at all hours (even more than normal). There were days when I would check my office snail mail four or more times (even though we only get one delivery per day!) The only thing that helped pass the time was Oblivian ( see dave's post ). Today I got in late (helpng a client deploy a BizTalk application), and finally checked my email. Ther...

It's spring cleaning time! What's different on my blog design? Not only have I been working in the yard, but I ditched the Google Adsense banner today. I only added it because it was a simple check box when setting up blogger. I wanted to go through the process to see how it worked. I got sick of it lurking up there, so out it goes! Second, I changed my stat provider to feedBurner, on Jim Holmes advice. I also added a RSS icon. Never noticed there wasn't one there. I just assumed there was one in the blogger template, but I guess not. Third, and best, I have registered for Tech-Ed 2006! This is going to be awesome. I attended the PDC in LA this past fall, and met a lot of great people. This time I get to not only go to the conference, but also I have been asked to be a speaker! I was totally floored and honored when I was asked. I will be co-presenting with Keith Bauer, the district's Program Manager for BizTalk. Our topic will be "BizTalk Server Solution Lifecycl...