Ken Watanabe as 'Katsumoto' in 'The Last Samurai'
  Return to Home Page Return to Main Subject Page Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, 'Katsumoto' in 'The Last Samurai'
Japanese actress Koyuki, 'Taka' in 'The Last Samurai'
Japanese actor Ken Watanbe honored with 'Hollywood Life Breakthrough of the Year' award for his perfomance as 'Katsumoto' in 'The Last Samurai'
Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, 'Ujio' in 'The Last Samurai'
American actor Tom Cruise, 'Nathan Algren' in 'The Last Samurai'
Japanese actor Ken Watanabe at a press conference for 'The Last Samurai' before filming started
Ken Watanabe and Tom Cruise at the New York premiere of 'The Last Samurai'		  
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Web & Internet Tools

Japanese Language & Translation Tools

Nifty.com Japanese/English webpage translator -- Must have cookies enabled! Slightly better than BabelFish, mostly because it opens the page in a new window (so you don't have to keep using your back button), and because the new page shows the translations BELOW the lines of foreign text. (Japanese-to-English is 2nd choice). Japanese site. Works the same way as BabelFish, except translated page is opened in a new window...so turn off your pop-up stopper.

BabelFish: webpage translator for various languages -- English site. Translate an entire webpage by entering the URL in the 1-line box, selecting the languages to convert between, and clicking the button. Translate text by pasting into the larget box and doing the same.

Learn Japanese -- Online instruction in learning Japanese. Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and how to write. Really cool, interactive, stroke-by-stroke writing feature!

Online English-to-Japanese/Japanese-to-English Dictionary -- Only for looking up words, not translating pages.

Saved Search Strings

Search results for "Watanabe Ken" in Japanese

Audio, Video, and Multi-Media Players

Windows MediaPlayer 9 -- FREE download.

Newest DivX Codec -- to make sure that mixed-media files and protected files play properly, download the latest codec from this website. Free.

To learn how the latest "codec" and Windows Media Player 9 can prevent playback problems, either go to the Ken Watanabe Worldwide Fans group, a.k.a. "kenfans", and read the file dated March 8, 2004 (must be a member to read files), or read the brief explanation on the Video Links page (see the list of numbered links, about halfway down...explanation is at beginning of list).

RealPlayer 10 -- FREE download.

QuickTime Player -- FREE download.

Web Browsers

Internet Explorer -- FREE download.

Opera -- FREE and ad-free versions.

Netscape -- FREE download.

Computer and Internet Utilities

Norton Internet Security (or Norton AntiVirus or Norton Personal Firewall seperately) -- Still the BEST security software on the planet in terms of the balance between ease of use and customization/user interaction. If you hate to learn anything you might prefer ZoneAlarm (below), but you cannot make the choices you can with Norton, especially with regards to cookies and report-viewing. As for catching viruses/blocking intrusions, most major brands are equally effective and perform similarly on tests.

ZoneAlarm Firewall -- You can download the FREE version or purchase "Plus" or "Pro" versions. PC Magazine "Editor's Choice". Easy to use. I use it myself.

EMS FreeSurfer MKII -- FREE popup stopper that runs in your system tray. Any time you need to turn it off (for example, if you want to watch a video that plays via a JavaScript pop-up), just right-click the icon and select "Stop". To start again, select "Start". Makes a beep anytime it blocks a pop-up. ("Companion" also available for purchase which ads more utilites, such as cleaning your cached files.) Works exactly as it says. I use it myself.

Productivity and Imaging Software

The Cleaner -- A very simple, very small FREE program that easily removes those annoying " > " marks from anything you paste in the program (especially email text). Can also remove extra line breaks, etc. No bugs. Designed by someone at Stamford University. The best tiny little program ever created! I adore it!

Acrobat Reader -- FREE download. Read PDF files right in your web browser. You need this to view PDF files.

IfranView -- This is a FREE image-editing utility designed by a Ukranian and very popular among webdesigners. It is not buggy, you can easily resize and convert images, save transparent backgrounds for GIF images, increase/decrease color depth, etc. I use it myself.

ACDSee -- This great image editing and management software has many fantastic features! Manage images with databases, captions, keywords, categories, and filters; create thumbnail- or slideshow-pages; add video or sound or sound to slideshows; instant-resize and batch-resize; catalog a CD, share images for 30 days, and more. About $ 50 U.S. I used this to create the slideshows on this website! NOTE: You will not want to use the option to have thumbnails below or beside the Webpage Slideshow unless you can hand-code in HTML! The program creates framed pages, but if you specify a link for the home button, the result does not take back the entire frameset (my only complaint with this software). If you can code in JavaScipt, you might be able to fix this behavior, since that is used to create the functionality. Otherwise, you must make the slideshow open in a new window or hand-code a link with the attribute target="top" into the "page.htm" page for every slideshow you make. If you are uncomfortable with this, just use the plain slideshow.

Netscape Smart Download -- FREE unzip/download utility. Automatically handles ZIP and EXE files, you can set it to handle others. Will resume on paused/lost connections and after crashes as long as web/file server supports resume. You can surf while you download. Will be prompted to unzip where applicable. The unzip feature is much easier to use than WinZip. I love it!

WinZip -- FREE evaluation version. Utility for unzipping compressed files. Sometimes a little tricky if you don't know what directory you should be unzipping to, which you may have to know for complicated installations, such as an Apache web server. I have used it, and I prefer Netscape Smart Download.

HomeSite, Dreamweaver, UltraDev, etc. -- HomeSite is the BEST hand-coder's software in existence, and it is reasonable (5.0 cost me $ 99). Dreamweaver, UltraDev, and others are far more expensive. All Macromedia's products are the best in their field and come with extensive, bookmarkable help and clear tutorials. I use HomeSite and I used a demo version of Dreamweaver before...both are out-of-this-world. Have you ever seen a help file where you can add your own pages?

FTP Voyager -- The BEST and most bug-free FTP software. FREE trial. I use it! I think it cost me $ 30 U.S. in 2002. Also sells anti-spam and other software I haven't got the chance to try.

Core FTP -- This came well-recommended (I was looking for a free FTP client until I can upgrade Voyager), but it's a little buggy. It closes and causes an error report if you leave it open in the background for a while. Tricky to use because it doesn't show 4 panes and it's easy to upload to the wrong folder until you get the hang of the file navigation. It's also easy to accidentally close the upload progress pane, and it took me a while to figure out how to get it back. Once in a blue moon it will register a successful upload even though the old files did not get overwritten. It's not my first choice, but it's a pretty good utility.