Registering a Yahoo! BB Account

Q. How do I register my Yahoo! BB account?

A. It's not too difficult, but the registration pages are all in Japanese so I've prepared a guide with pictures to guide you along.

What you need to have...

First of all, before beginning, you will need to have the following information:

1. Your Yahoo Japan ID which is five letters followed by three digits (e.g., "abcde123") and your password which is probably six digits. Both are on the first page of your Yahoo! BB "Starter Pack" letter which should have been the first letter you received after filing your application with Yahoo. It came in a dark gray envelope and is marked "SoftBank" which is the name of Yahoo Japan's parent company (it's a software campany, not a place to deposit money).

2. Your Postal Code--a seven digit number in this format: 123-4567

You will also be asked your birth date and sex. Those two items, along with your postal code and the answer to a 'secret' question to be determined in this process may be asked of you later to confirm you identity when calling Yahoo on the phone or if you forget your password or want to change it.

Display of Japanese Characters...

If you find that the Japanese isn't displayed properly, try resetting the Text Encoding (look in View/Edit, etc. menus for Text/Character Coding/Encoding, etc.). Change it to "Japanese Auto-Select or, if that's not available try Japanese Shift-JIS, etc., until you find a system that displays properly. Of course, older computers may not be able to display Japanese at all, in which case, the following procedure will be even more challenging (though probably not impossible ;-).

How to do it...

1. Go to the BB Member's Service Page That page will open in a new window. You may want to resize both this window and the new one so you can easily move back and forth between them. In the new window, click on the Yahoo! BB button as shown here:

Click on the "Service" link (as shown by the arrow below).

2. The next page that opens will be a log-in page similar to the following graphic. Enter your Yahoo Japan ID and password from the first page of the "Starter Pack" letter you received form Yahoo! BB.

3. After you click on the Log-in button (next to the little image of a lock, a new page will open as below. In that page, when you click on the first pop-up menu, you'll see this ( I've added numbers in red to aid with the following list of translations.):

This pop-up menu is where you choose your "Secret Question." This is one of the questions you'll be asked to confirm your identity if you forget your password or want to upgrade your service, etc. The words in BOLD CAPS below are those that appear in katakana in the pop-up menu which may aid you in your selection. If you cannot read katakana, maybe it's time to learn. (It only takes a few hours of concentrated study. ;-)

1. Name of PET?
2. Name of elementary/primary school?
3. Childhood HERO?
4. Food you hate?
5. Favorite sports TEAM?
6. Father's name?
7. Your high school's IDOL? (Whatever that means...mascot, I guess.)
8. First car you bought?
9. Number 1 favorite movie?

4. After choosing one of the questions, enter the answer in the next space (shown in the next graphic below). Roman letters (that is, a, b, c, etc.) should be okay, though some have reported that only Japanese charcters were accepted.

Then enter, in order, your birth date, postal code and sex. If you don't know the kanji for men and women, learn them now--you'll need them to use some public toilets. In the graphic below, Male has a check (√) mark and Female is in blue.

The last two pop-up menus are for industry and occupation. I suggest you just choose the last item in each list which is "other." Compare the kanji in this graphic to be sure you got it right.

Finally, I suggest you uncheck the box next to the words "Yahoo! JAPAN" unless you want to get advertising emails in Japanese. (Actually, you'll probably get some anyway--leaving this checked will get you even more.)

5. When finished making your choices, click the button to send your registration. You will next see the following which confirms the registration and shows your email settings. You may want to print or save this page for future reference.

NOTE: After registering you'll receive a few emails. One or two of them will have a link that looks like a link back to the site to confirm the registration. DON'T CLICK IT!. It's actually a link to cancel the registration!

You are now finished registering your account. You may set up your email account if you wish, but before doing so, I suggest you read my opinion on why I think it's A Bad Idea.

Hope this helps!

Jimmie

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