General Information & Online Resources

General Software

jBrowse: plugin for Microsoft's Internet Explorer that adds furigana and word definitions to Japanese web pages. It's also a Japanese dictionary and kanji tool. Free.
Hiragana Navi: software converting Kanji characters on the internet to hiragana; shareware version: ¥3,500
Japanese Viewer CGI: Resource-intensive perl script to view Japanese fonts with web browsers (perl edition of Kentaro's "I like Japan" program)

Rosetta Stone: Rosetta Stone Japanese Level I is based on associated learning introducing ideas and objects in context; supported OS are Macintosh and Windows 3.1/9x/NT

Computing Japan: an article from August 1996 titled "English-to-Japanese Translation Programs: Can They Do the Job?"
Japanese Character Encoding: an article by Jeffrey Friedl expanding on JIS, EUC, Shift-JIS and Unicode
Japanese Computing on Macintosh: Technical Japanese Program, vast resources on Japanese Macintosh provided by the University of Washington
Japanese Language Reading Tutorial System : Useful language resources in Japanese, English and German, presented by the Tokyo International University: Reading Tutor, online dictionary, Reading Matearial Bank, Toolbox & Level Checker
Japanisation FAQ for computers running Western Windows: one of the most detailed explanations on how to Japanize your Western PC
LESSON/J: Japanese Language Education System for Speech on an On-demand Network
Reading Asian Web Pages on Western Computer Systems: technical information and solutions on how to use CJK on non-CJK systems, presented by Maniform Creative Services; a lot of helpful product reviews
Sharp Japanese Word Processor: mobile notebook with quick input, speed search and easy mail for enhanced communication
Tokyo English Information Source: Pat B. Willener's excellent resources on English/Japanese Windows95 issues and on Windows98 & Windows2000 expanding on Japanese Keyboard support for Windows 2000 and on Japanese IME in general
Using Japanese language on your computer: presented by Web Kanzaki