/** start of the kstati's encoding troubles fix */ 
      $tmp = @mysql_query("SHOW VARIABLES like 'character_set_server';"); 
      $enc = @mysql_fetch_assoc($tmp); 
      @mysql_free_result($tmp); 
      $enc = $enc['Value']; 
      @mysql_query("SET character_set_client='$enc'"); 
      @mysql_query("SET character_set_connection='$enc'"); 
      @mysql_query("SET character_set_database='$enc'"); 
      @mysql_query("SET character_set_results='$enc'"); 
      //   @mysql_free_result(); 
      unset($enc); 
      unset($tmp); 
      /** end of the fix */