Entries from February 2008 ↓

I’m not sure how much value it add, but may we it will be interesting to have a LINQ to HealthVault, something like

var query = from Person
where Person.Name.Contains(“Katie”)
select Record

Charlie has a great post on expression tree basics, and this examples details how to implement a LINQ to Terraserver provider.

However, at this point I’m not entirely sure about the utility of such a feature for HealthVault as the system is less where clause dependant and the SDK already does a decent job of giving out data-types.

As detailed by Sean Nolan on FamilyHealthGuy – HealthVault now has

1. A Java wrapper library on available now on codeplex under Microsoft Public License.
2. Complete .NET SDK Source tobe released in Spring 08 under Microsoft Reference License.
3. Commited for Open Specification Promise process to be launched in Fall 08.

What this means is -

1. You can work with HealthVault using non Microsoft Technologies
2. You can refer to the .NET SDK if you want to develop a wrapper library to work with your technologies.
3. You can implement healthvault yourself!! – so no lock-in!
4. Transparent and Comminity driven – the process by which healthvault gets developed is transparent and open to participation by the community.

The latest release of HealthVault SDK has a sample called “OfflineAccess”. I posted more details on how to use it on healthvault blog.

HealthVault has no notification mechanism. So there is no way say your users can see there images automatically updated in one browser window if the other one upload one. One can do this my polling the PersonalImage data-item for the LastUpdated time stamp. If the time stamp is greater than the last time we got data from healthvault then re-do it or this all could be buried under a cache manager. Something like

PersonalImage pItem = new PersonalImage();
pItem.LastUpdated;

In the HealthAndFitness application provided in HealthVault SDK, we provide a single click mechanism where the user can referesh all site data, perhaps something like this could be used to refresh the image or other individual data-items as well.