I'm teaching myself Hiragana and Katakana, and some other basics of the language, and I just have a few questions.

First is a kind of technical question, but I think it'll help me with studying - How do I make it so I can type in kanji?

Then, when someone says 'no', does that mean a possession? I guess if someone could throw me a few examples of using 'no' then I'd understand it a bit better.

And I suppose this is just a experience question - for the complicated kanji, that's not the basic hiragana/katakana, how did you guys learn those? Is it just pick one, and trace it until you memorize the way to write it?

Is there a good CD learning program for kanji? I got one that's called "talk Now! Learn Japanese." But only the first disc was educational in a reasonable way. =/

Any help would be appreciated ^_^ I'm trying to get my GPA up at a community college in my area (that doesn't offer Japanese), before I can transfer to a different college, which offers Japanese language courses.
I'm also going to be going over to Japan next April, so I'd like to be able to speak/read as much as possible before I go over there, or start classes.. Whichever comes first. Hehe.