Abstract: A handheld toy having a handle portion and a barrel portion is provided. The handle portion includes a hand grip and a compressible trigger partially positioned therein. The barrel portion includes a clear hollow tube substantially enclosing a rotatable shaft. The shaft is driven by a motor contained within the handle portion and activated by pressing the trigger. A plurality of light emitting diodes (LED's) are attached to the shaft and extend therefrom. When a user presses the trigger, the LED's light up in varying patterns based on pre-programmed instructions, causing a varied light pattern to project from the hollow tube as the shaft rotates. The handle portion includes a speaker and corresponding circuitry contained therein for sound effects. The toy contains batteries in the handle portion for power, but can also use other power means. The toy can be shaped to resemble various objects including a sword and gun.

Abstract: The invention is directed toward a bubble-producing toy which can be held in a user's hand, and, when activated by the user pulling on a trigger, will produce a stream of bubbles via forced air funneling through an aperture in the invention's “mouth”, over which a tongue-shaped flat disk creates a film of bubble solution through which air is forced to create bubbles. Attached to the flat disk is a funnel/catchment basin which recycles bubble solution which did not leave the invention as a bubble.

Abstract: A method of managing application service provider product line variations is disclosed. The method includes receiving a client customization request, creating a configuration managed file tailored to the client customization request, binding the configuration managed file to at least one customizable resource, and deploying the customizable resource to a data store. The customizable resource is instantiated after disposition at the data store.

Abstract: A classification engine provides flexible support for manipulation of attribute-based data by dynamic generation of SQL with classifiers constructed from different schema objects representing different database schemas. The classifiers may be constructed by defining classifiers corresponding to the database schema, and mapping the classifiers to columns on tables in the database. The invention also allows a classification system to modify the database structure and easily conform the classification engine to the modified structure without recompiling the engine or rewriting the application that use the classification system. The engine is conformed to the new structure by constructing a second schema object for the modified database. The schema objects are preferably defined using a field-based language such as extensible markup language (XML).