Kaizen and the Nipponster Japan Toolbar

Kaizen, Baby!
We are trying to make the Nipponster Japan Toolbar better and better all the time

Kaizen (改善) - continuous improvement

If you are out of the loop when it comes to our Japan Toolbar, and the cool tools we've been working on, check out this previous post: Free Internet Broadcast Japanese TV!

And it you haven't downloaded it yet DO IT NOW! --> Nipponster Japan Toolbar download page. We think you will thank yourself for it later ;)

The Nipponster Japan Toolbar is the first Japan Toolbar, the first Japan-enthusiasts toolbar. It is the first toolbar to bring all the gadgets a Japan-enthusiast needs together in one place: Japanese dictionaries, Kanji cards, free Japanese typing software (Japanese language support), language practice, radio language lessons, 24 hour Japanese TV, and all kinds of useful links. And don't forget Nipponster Search (the first Japan-related search engine).

So how did we improve a toolbar so chocked full of goodies?
We've added three cool new things to the Japan Toolbar:

1. More new free Japanese internet TV links
2. A web app that let's you type in Japanese without software
3. Cool gadgets from Labpixies

New free Japanese TV channels:
We've added Impress TV, Channel J, Biglobe, and NHK (English & Japanese). Here is a screenshot:



Type in Japanese without software:
A great tool to use if you do not have a Japanese OS and you don't have (or don't want to install) Japanese typing software.
It is a good idea to bookmark this link (http://ajaxime.chasen.org/index.html) on Google bookmarks, etc. (or save it somewhere like in your gmail). Here is why: Let's say you take a little trip to Australia and midway through your trip you need to email someone in Japanese. But there's a problem, none of the PCs available have Japanese typing software. Not good. But wait, now all you have to do is visit this link and you can type in Japanese without installing software! Awesome.
Here is a screenshot:



Cool gadgets from Labpixies:
There are a lot of gadget goodies but the best in my book is Labpixie TV. This is probably of more interest to foreigners in Japan, whereas the Japanese TV is interesting to people outside of Japan. Missing TV from home? LabPixie TV has programmable TV stations. Click on the first button on the right and it will take you to their website where you can choose your channel,... by country!
Screenshot:



They even have some Japanese stations on there but it is all user submitted and some of the .asp links (streaming tv links) may have been changed. They seem to get changed pretty often, that is why in our tv section we link to the homepages too.

Well, that's it for now. What's next? Video search?! (uh. oh. looks like I let the cat out of the bag...) Stay Tuned!!

And let us know what you think by giving us some feedback!
We do it for you, the Japan-enthusiasts.

-Tori

Out with the Old and In with the NEW Hot Searches!

After much lasiness, procrastination, and lack of motivation, Here They Are...

The NEW Hot Searches

nuMber 1 - Mystery men's-room money

no, I&m not going to tell you. You will just have to find out on your own.



nUmber 2)











Online Japanese Train Simulators


NumbeR 3/
O-yatoi Gaikokujin
Meet the foreigners who built modern Japan!

NumBer 4>
Japanese PenPals!

EnJoY, my Fellow Japan-Enthusiasts!
-Tori

p.s. IF you are looking for the old hot searches they are not in the archive, they are here

Stone Soup and the Nipponster Japan Project

Have you ever heard the story "Stone Soup"?


The old folktale seems to have different versions but basically it goes like this:

Their was a man with nothing but a pot and a hunger for soup. He puts a stone into the pot of water and tells everyone passing by that it is the most delicious soup but all that it is missing is their ingredient. One puts in a carrot, another a potato, etc. until it becomes a great soup. None of them could have made that soup with only their own item. All benefited from a much tastier soup when it was finished.

In the same way we have nothing but a hunger to make a great soup, a great soup of resources. But like the man in the story we have nothing, all we have is a stone (our feeble abilities) and a pot of water (a new wikipedia-like wiki). But we are convinced that by bringing all of the bloggers, webmasters, and general internet users who are passionate about Japan together around a common goal we can make better resources for all.

That is the concept behind the Nipponster Japan Project. We will be announcing the start of this project in the upcoming weeks. We look forward to working on this project with all who are interested. And we would love to chat with you. So, if you just cannot wait to know more, contact us.

Mission: Enhance and Improve Japan-related content on the web!

If you have read some of our other posts or communicated with us via email you may know that we are dedicated to improving the Japan-related content available online amd making it more accessible.

We want to be the Google (and wikipedia) of Japan-related content, with a similar focus on transparency and "Don't Be Evil" (Google's motto).

We want to make the web a better place for Japan-enthusiasts

So we are anxious to spearhead various projects to accomplish that.

For example we want to form a group of contributors and improve the Japanese language textbooks on wikibooks.

We plan to organise these projects through a Wikia wiki. We just requested one to day, waiting for apporoval...

-Tori

Helping Foreigners in Japan

One of the most important goals of Nipponster.com is to help foreigners in Japan (and people interested in visiting, studying, or living in Japan in the future).

I know from personal experience that adjusting to life in Japan is very difficult at the beginning (even regardless of speaking ability). Some have lived in Japan for years and still find it difficult (If you don't understand that you probably haven't lived there long enough yet :)

We hope to make things easier for would-be and current "gaijin" and any feedback and ideas about how we can do that better are extremely appreciated (contact us)

I found this video about getting around in Japan (below). It's a little cheesy (in a cute way) at points but I think it's very good and this kind of video theme could be very useful for foreigners.

-Tori