[tlug] I hate encodings!

["Jeff Madsen" <jeff@example.com>]

I am being driven crazy these days trying to work with the various encodings 
I have to use in my daily life (with php and mysql on Linux). The function 
descriptions all look simple enough, but nothing ever seems to output 
correctly for me :-(
Since I've never really had any training in this area, I'm looking for some 
decent tutorials on the subject. Specifically, using php with a mysql 
database on linux, with Western (including Spanish)  , Japanese, Cyrillic 
sets and utf-8. I've worked as a programmer for about 10 years, but am new 
to web development, so mid-level material would be great. Something with 
lots of examples about learning about the environment you're working with 
(often we pull data from other websites) and converting is what i'm most 
interested in.
Hope that question made sense - you can probably detect my confusion 
already!
Thanks,
Jeff