This is one of the most useful things I have found when it comes to quickly learning the meaning of characters and words.

Moji is a Firefox Add-On that gives you a sidebar that allows you to easily highlight an individual character or word, then look it up right in your browser. It gives you all the information you should need including index pages to any other book or flashcards you may already be using.

Highly recommended. I will try to post some other things I have come across in the future, I have a pretty extensive list of bookmarks and apps that are very useful.

[MOJI]