httx, iiimf, and Japanese input - how do I set environment variables?

[dave at tokyocomedy.com (Dave Gutteridge)]

Thanks for following up. By reading on the web site you pointed me to, 
I've learned that I do not have these environment variables set:
XMODIFIERS=@im=htt
GTK_IM_MODULE=iiim

And that I don't have the  htt_xbe service running.

I read on the web that variables can just be arbitrarily set (though I'm 
still not totally clear on exactly how), but I'm wary of just setting 
these, as my suspicion is that if I had my set up properly isntalled, 
they would have been set already.
So can I just set them (and if so, how?), or is there a better way to 
ensure that the variables are actually referencing something?

Dave