So you’ve joined Google+. You don’t know who to add to your circle. How about the most popular members of AKB48, SKE48, NMB48 and now HKT48?

Just a few months ago AKB48 announced their partnership with Google+ “Project 48“. Since then, HKT48 have signed up as well as new members over the age of 18. Just recently, stage manager Togasaki joined Google+.

Google+ has become one of the best ways to follow the girls. If you love AKB48 and social networking, go join Google+ and start adding them to your circle!

To give you an idea of who to add to your circle besides your favourite. Here’s a list of the most popular members.

1. Oshima Yuko – AKB48 Team K (112,480)

2. Shinoda Mariko – AKB48 Team A （108,112）

3. Maeda Atsuko – AKB Team A（108,098）

4. Kashiwagi Yuki – AKB48 Team B（104,087）

5. Sashihara Rino – AKB48 Team A （102,733）

6. Kojima Haruna – AKB48 Team A （100,715）

7. Takahashi Minami – AKB48 Team A （98,240）

8. Takajo Aki – AKB48 Team A（88,098）

9. Itano Tomomi – AKB48 Team K （85,399）

10. Matsui Rena – SKE48 Team S （82,937）

11. Akimoto Yasushi – Producer （81,268）

12. Yokoyama Yui – AKB48 Team K （81,060）

13. Miyazawa Sae – AKB48 Team K （77,734）

14. Kitahara Rie – AKB48 Team B（76,827）

15. Minegishi Minami – AKB48 Team K （76,791）

16. Matsui Sakiko – AKB48 Team K（67,352）

17. Kuramochi Asuka – AKB48 Team A （67,248）

18. Kasai Tomomi – AKB48 Team B （62,779）

19. Akimoto Sayaka – AKB48 Team K（59,129）

20. Ooya Shizuka – AKB48 Team A（58,592）

21. Sato Amina – AKB48 Team A（58,303）

22. Masuda Yuka – AKB48 Team B（58,118）

23. Umeda Ayaka – AKB48 Team K （56,883）

24. Nakagawa Haruka – AKB48 Team A （52,608）

25. Yamamoto Sayaka – NMB48 Team N （52,471）

26. Kikuchi Ayaka – AKB48 Team K（52,126）

27. Ishida Haruka – AKB48 Team B（50,723）

28. Hirajima Natsumi – AKB48 Team B（50,238）

29. Shimada Haruka – AKB48 Team 4 （48,133）

30. Miyazaki Miho – AKB48 Team B （47,792）

31. Nito Moeno – AKB48 Team K（47,472）

32. Sato Sumire – AKB48 Team B（47,063）

33. Katayama Haruka – AKB48 Team A（47,007）

34. Takayanagi Akane – SKE48 Team KII（46,518）

35. AKB48 Under 18s（44,744）

36. Sato Natsuki – AKB48 Team B（41,546）

37. Watanabe Miyuki – NMB48 Team N (41,146）

38. Hata Sawako – SKE48 Team KII （40,427）

39. Nakamata Shiori – AKB48 Team 4（40,047）

40. Kobayashi Kana -AKB48 Team B（39,934）

41. Nonaka Misato – AKB48 Team K（39,150）

42. Nakaya Sayaka – AKB48 Team A（39,143）

43. Matsubara Natsumi – AKB48 Team K（37,823）

44. Nakatsuka Tomomi – AKB48 Team K（37,817）

45. Yonezawa Rumi – AKB48 Team K（37,216）

46. Tanabe Miku – AKB48 Team K（37,079）

47. Nakata Chisato – AKB48 Team A（36,414）

48. Suzuki Mariya – AKB48 Team B（36,156）

49. Ogiso Shiori – SKE48 Team KII（35,605）

50. Chikano Rina – AKB48 Team B （35,490）

51. Yamada Nana – NMB48 Team N（32,574）

52. Suda Akari – SKE48 Team S（32,224）

53. Oba Mina – AKB48 Team 4（31,156）

54. Furukawa Airi -SKE48 Team KII（30,779）

55. Hiramatsu Kanako – SKE48 Team S（30,642）

56. Oya Masana – SKE48 Team S（30,109）

57. Kuwabara Mizuki – SKE48 Team S（27,225）

58. Nakanishi Yuuka – SKE48 Team S（26,468）

59. Ono Haruka – SKE48 Team S（25,986）

60. Fukumoto Aina – NMB48 Team N（24,930）

61. Deguchi Aki – SKE48 Team S（24,758）

62. Matsumura Kaori – SKE48 Kenkyuusei（23,874）

63. Matsumoto Rina – SKE48 Team KII（23,139）

64. Yakata Miki – SKE48 Team KII（22,775）

65. SKE48 Under 18s （22,417）

66. Imade Mai – SKE48 Kenkyuusei（22,192）

67. Hirata Rikako – SKE48 Team S（21,978）

68. Takada Shiori – SKE48 Team S（21,772）

69. Sato Seira – SKE48 Team KII（21,513）

70. Abiru Riho – SKE48 Team KII（21,472）

71. Sato Mieko – SKE48 Team KII（21,231）

72. Umemoto Madoka – SKE48 Team E（20,730）

73. Kitou Momona – SKE48 Kenkyuusei（20,234）

74. Shibata Aya – SKE48 Team E (20,136）

75. Kobayashi Ami – SKE48 Team E（19,996）

76. Katou Tomoko – SKE48 Team KII（19,664）

77. Nakamura Mariko – AKB48 Team 4（19,624）

78. Takeuchi Mai – SKE48 Team E（19,547）

79. Uchida Mayumi – AKB48 Team K（18,711）

80. Takagi Yumana – SKE48 Team E（18,074）

81. Murakami Ayaka – NMB48 Kenkyuusei 2nd gen（17,921）

82. Yamaguchi Yuuki – NMB48 Team N （16,968）

83. NMB48 Under 18s（15,430）

84. Takano Yui – NMB48 Kenkyuusei 2nd gen（15,169）

85. Kinoshita Yukiko – SKE48 Team S（14,473）

86. HKT48 Under 18s（11,232）

87. Shimada Rena – NMB48 Kenkyuusei 2nd Gen (8637)

Source: User Local

On Google+? No one to add to your circles? How about a couple of members from AKB48, SKE48 and NMB48?

A couple? Well it’s more like 77 members from the AKB48 family. Although it’s only members over the age of 18, most of the popular members are on there. Oshima Yuko, Maeda Atsuko and Kashiwagi Yuki just to name a few.

What’re you waiting for? Head on over to Google+ AKB48 to start adding your favourite members! If you haven’t already signed up to Google+ now there’s an excuse!

I’ve previously introduced you to Furigana Injector, a nifty little plugin available for Firefox and Chrome users that lets you add furigana to content on the web with just one click.

Now I realize some people don’t use any of these browsers (don’t ask me why because I don’t get it either), and if you happen to be one of them, below are a couple of links that will help you add furigana to texts and websites without them.

Hiragana Megane
This website lets you add furigana to any web page simply by putting in a URL to an input field. The good thing about Hiragana Megane is that it seems to get everything right, some other furigana generators I’ve tried (although none in this post) have had big problems with names. It also gives you a proper link that you can send to your friends.

Furigana Generator
This tool is slightly different, instead of adding a URL you actually copy and paste some Japanese text into a big text field and clicking “Add Furigana”. This might come in handy if you’re trying to add furigana to a website that has a complicated stylesheet.

Furiganizer
Works just like Furigana Generator, just use the one you happen to like the most.

I hope that helps with your studies or simply your daily use of Japanese websites! Have fun!

jetdaisuke is a Japanese YouTuber who, amongst many things, does reviews of electronics, gadgets, beer and all kinds of eatables. He also loves music, VOCALOID related things especially, which is quite awesome!

jetdaisuke’s videos are quite relaxing to watch and I love trying out new beers and snacks so it’s the perfect channel for me. His awkward humor always gets me too(^_^;)

On top of that his videos have English captions, so you don’t have to know any Japanese!

jetdaisukeでした！ And don’t forget to subscribe!

As you may have noticed, in the last design update of this blog, I added a category for Japanese web design. This category has been rather popular and it’s probably my favorite category to post in. So because of that, I decided to actually create a new website, a web design showcase. And after a few days of work, it’s up and running!

I’ve named the site VERY VERY NICE (VVN) and although it’s focused on Japanese web design, it’s by no means limited to just that. I have great goals for this site and I think it has potential, so reblogs, retweets etc. would be greatly appreciated.

VVN is very simple and straightforward, no ads, nothing unnecessary, just web designs for you to be inspired by. I’ve only had time to add 57 designs so far (47 of those are Japanese), but it’s growing quickly. So if you’re interested in web design, do keep an eye on it because there’s plenty to come. I’m still working on the taxonomy structure, but it should be fairly easy to browse. You can use keyboard shortcuts “j” and “k” to navigate between posts and pages more quickly, a nice feature if you want to see every design in a bigger format.

So without further ado, head over to VERY VERY NICE and look at some very very nice web designs!

The alternative is a very simple solution and all you have to do is change a few settings, because if you’re on a Mac, you already have what you need. Basically what you can do is activate a Japanese-English dictionary in the Dictionary app, which unsurprisingly allows you to look up Japanese words.

What you might not know about this, is that the Dictionary app has a built-in feature called floating dictionary. The floating dictionary is activated by hovering over a word and pressing the key combination cmd+ctrl+d.

And if the selection fails by just hovering, you can highlight whatever it is you want to look up, and press cmd+ctrl+d just like you would when hovering.

There are a few of pros and cons about this alternative that you need to know about however.

Pros

• It’s built-in to the system, no need for a 3rd party plugin.
• You don’t have to turn it off when you don’t need it. Rikaichan’s popups are pretty annoying when you don’t want them.
• You get things like example sentences with translations which is perfect when you’re having a hard time understanding the word in context.
• Floating dictionary is not a browser plugin, it works with any selectable text in almost any application, for example Twitter, Mail and Adium. It does not work in Adobe Air applications like TweetDeck.

Many bloggers, especially those who like to be a bit more personal, like to mess around with their sidebar(s) by adding all kinds of widgets. But good widgets are hard to come by these days and many end up using the same ones. So if your blog is in some way related to Japan or if you just fancy Japan in general, a Japanese blog widget might be something for you.

There are thousands of Japanese blog widgets out there, many of which are cute and colorful, and I’m sure you’ve stumbled upon them on various (usually crowded) Japanese websites, blogs especially. So today, rather than giving you recommendations for specific widgets (or blog parts as the Japanese like to call them), I will give you a list of good websites where you can find them yourself. All of these websites are in Japanese, but they should be fairly easy to navigate without knowing too much Japanese. But if it’s too hard, you can always use Rikaichan.

• Blog Parts
• Netsket Blog Parts
• Blog Wasabi
• Blog Parts Garden
• Blog Parts Land
• Blog-in
• Bloglue

These are just a few blog parts sites that I like, there’s plenty to be found on Google if you search for ブログパーツ.

And for those who are real weather enthusiasts, it also lets you share weather reports to Twitter. Other than that it also offers the usual model profiles.

Unfortunately, the iPhone app is a bit on the buggy side, but it was released yesterday so I’m sure it’ll get a few updates soon. But give it a try and see if it works better for you.

Download the app here! or visit the website here.

I decided to do so mostly because I can’t use a side bag when I’m taking the bike to school. But also because when you carry expensive things, like a MacBook Pro, having a side bag that goes back and forth and bumps into your thigh every two seconds just forces me to hold it still.

More info about my bag on In My Bag

But what I really wanted to tell you about is this new Japanese community called In My Bag. It’s a very simple community that lets people share their bags, be it for business, private, sports or whatever. You can look at other people’s bags and get ideas of things you could add to your own bag, and enlighten others of things they should add.

The site is available both in Japanese and English so I definitely think it’s worth a try, even though it’s mostly a one-time fun thing, unless you have a whole lot of bags. They also have a Twitter account in case you want to keep track of people’s bags more easily^^

I think it’s a cool idea, it’s definitely better than just another Twitter-copy!

Via CNNGo.com

I look at it in a different way now, actually I think it’s pretty stupid for me to get upset about it. And why is that? Basically because I (we) do the exact same thing. We might not be stealing other people’s blog content, but most of us probably use copyrighted photos, download music and other copyrighted material. And that is pretty much the same thing, it’s just a vicious circle of mad people. Nothing good comes out of getting upset about it, period.

Ask yourself, do you really have the right to be mad about it? Do you respect other people’s rights?

So instead of getting upset about it, look at it as an opportunity to grow and reach a new audience. It’s your content so you can do exactly what you want with it. Watermark your photos, link to your site inside posts, do everything you can to make sure that people who are looking at your content from somewhere else, will know that they’re not looking at the original source. Sure, other sites might make a few bucks by using your content, but it’s also free advertising for you, if you take use of the opportunity. If people like what they read, there’s a big chance they’ll check your site out, if they know where your site is located.

This applies to artists too (or the labels in charge). They can either be be upset about their CDs appearing on torrent sites, or they can think of it as free marketing. The CD itself isn’t the only thing you can make money with, use it to advertise the artist and sell other stuff. Just look at some of the big Japanese artists like Koda Kumi and Hamasaki Ayumi, A LOT of people download their CDs but they probably make gazillions of dollars by selling t-shirts, hoodies, slippers, plushies, fans, photocards, tape, you name it.

The Japanese are very clever when it comes to getting the most out of their fans.

It’s all about using it as an opportunity, look at it differently, be happy.

A few tips for bloggers who are fighting RSS scraping sites:

• Don’t fight them, use them.
• Watermark your photos.
• If you’re linking to pages on you own site, open them in the current window instead of a new one. That will lead people off the scraping site.
• Use FeedBurner FeedFlare.
  
  This was taken on a site that scrapes my full RSS feed. The FeedFlare is automatically embedded at the end of every post. You can freely choose what you want to have in the FeedFlare. If your blog is new or just doesn’t do very well on search engines, these sites can be a big threat to you as they’ll get visitors that should end up on your blog. So if your blog is new, it’s even more important to do everything you can to let those visitors know that the’re not where they should be. I’ve been blogging for a while now and I hit fairly well on search engines, none of the scraping sites hit higher than my own blog, but it’s still important for me to do whatever I can, as people can miss my entries when searching.

This came to mind after all of our discussions about fansubbing and whether fansubbers should allow their translations to be used on streaming sites. I’m interested in hearing your thought on this, do you get mad if people steal your content? What do you do about it?