diff --git a/admin/award_awards.php b/admin/award_awards.php
index 33dc1f0..55dfda0 100644
--- a/admin/award_awards.php
+++ b/admin/award_awards.php
@@ -32,11 +32,6 @@
  	$id = intval($_GET['id']);
 	$q=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM award_awards WHERE id='$id'");
 	$ret = mysql_fetch_assoc($q);
-	//json_encode NEEDS UTF8 DATA, but we store it in the database as ISO :(
-	foreach($ret AS $k=>$v) {
-		$ret[$k]=iconv("ISO-8859-1","UTF-8",$v);
-	}
-	//echo iconv("ISO-8859-1","UTF-8",json_encode($ret));
 	echo json_encode($ret);
 	exit;
 
@@ -60,18 +55,18 @@
 
 	$q = "UPDATE award_awards SET 
 		award_types_id='".intval($_POST['award_types_id'])."',
-		presenter='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST['presenter'])))."', 
+		presenter='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['presenter']))."', 
 		excludefromac='".(($_POST['excludefromac'] == 1) ? 1 : 0)."',
 		cwsfaward='".(($_POST['cwsfaward'] == 1) ? 1 : 0)."', 
 		self_nominate='".(($_POST['self_nominate'] == 'yes') ? 'yes' : 'no')."', 
 		schedule_judges='".(($_POST['schedule_judges'] == 'yes') ? 'yes' : 'no')."', 
-		description='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST['description'])))."' ";
+		description='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['description']))."' ";
 
 	if(array_key_exists('name', $_POST)) {
 		/* These values may be disabled, if they name key exists, assume
 		 * they aren't disabled and save them too */
-		$q .= ",name='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST['name'])))."',
-			criteria='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST['criteria'])))."', 
+		$q .= ",name='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['name']))."',
+			criteria='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['criteria']))."', 
 			sponsors_id='".intval($_POST['sponsors_id'])."' ";
 	}
 	$q .= "WHERE id='$id'";
@@ -160,9 +155,6 @@
 		$q = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM award_prizes WHERE award_awards_id='$id' ORDER BY `order`");
 	}
 	while($r=mysql_fetch_assoc($q)) {
-		foreach($r AS $k=>$v) {
-			$r[$k]=iconv("ISO-8859-1","UTF-8",$v);
-		}
 		$ret[] = $r;
 	}
 	echo json_encode($ret);
@@ -172,7 +164,7 @@
 	$q = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM award_prizes WHERE id='$id'");
 	$ret=mysql_fetch_assoc($q);
 	foreach($ret AS $k=>$v) {
-		$ret[$k]=iconv("ISO-8859-1","UTF-8",$v);
+		$ret[$k]=$v;
 	}
 	echo json_encode($ret);
 	exit;
@@ -192,7 +184,7 @@
  case 'prize_save':
 	$id = intval($_POST['id']);
 	$q="UPDATE award_prizes SET 
-				prize='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",$_POST['prize'])))."', 
+				prize='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",$_POST['prize']))."', 
 				cash='".intval($_POST['cash'])."',
 				scholarship='".intval($_POST['scholarship'])."',
 				value='".intval($_POST['value'])."',
diff --git a/admin/communication.php b/admin/communication.php
index c052b5c..8fc1c25 100644
--- a/admin/communication.php
+++ b/admin/communication.php
@@ -136,28 +136,12 @@ case 'dialog_choose':
 case 'email_save':
 	$id = intval($_POST['emails_id']);
 
-	//we need to character encode BEFORE we myql_real_escape_strintg
-	//otherwise, a smartquote ' will turn into a normal ' that ends up
-	//not being escaped!
-	$name=$_POST['name'];
-	$description=$_POST['description'];
-	$from=$_POST['from'];
-	$subject=$_POST['subject'];
-	$bodyhtml=$_POST['bodyhtml'];
-
-	//add //TRANSLIT to approximate any characters (eg smartquotes) that it doesnt know
-	$bodyhtml=iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$bodyhtml);
-	$name=iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$name);
-	$description=iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$description);
-	$from=iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$from);
-	$subject=iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$subject);
-
-	//Now its safe to escape it for the db query
-	$name = mysql_real_escape_string(stripslashes($name));
-	$description = mysql_real_escape_string(stripslashes($description));
-	$from = mysql_real_escape_string(stripslashes($from));
-	$subject = mysql_real_escape_string(stripslashes($subject));
-	$bodyhtml = mysql_real_escape_string(stripslashes($bodyhtml));
+	// escape all strings for the db query
+	$name = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['name']);
+	$description = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['description']);
+	$from = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['from']);
+	$subject = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['subject']);
+	$bodyhtml = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['bodyhtml']);
 
 	$type = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['type']);
 	$key = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['key']);
diff --git a/admin/gettranslation.php b/admin/gettranslation.php
index 954c962..063e2af 100644
--- a/admin/gettranslation.php
+++ b/admin/gettranslation.php
@@ -28,11 +28,11 @@ user_auth_required('committee', 'admin');
 $ret=array();
 foreach($config['languages'] AS $l=>$ln) {
 	if($l==$config['default_language']) continue;
-	$q=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM translations WHERE lang='$l' AND strmd5='".md5(iconv("ISO-8859-1","UTF-8",$_GET['str']))."'");
+	$q=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM translations WHERE lang='$l' AND strmd5='".md5($_GET['str'])."'");
 	if($r=mysql_fetch_object($q))
-        $ret[$l]=iconv("ISO-8859-1","UTF-8",$r->val);
+	        $ret[$l]=$r->val;
 	else
-        $ret[$l]="";
+        	$ret[$l]="";
 }
 echo json_encode($ret);
 ?>
diff --git a/admin/project_editor.php b/admin/project_editor.php
index 78f62ef..4a0cb8a 100644
--- a/admin/project_editor.php
+++ b/admin/project_editor.php
@@ -113,13 +113,13 @@ function project_save()
 		$title=stripslashes($_POST['title']);
 
 	mysql_query("UPDATE projects SET ".
-			"title='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$title))."', ".
+			"title='".mysql_escape_string($title)."', ".
 			"projectdivisions_id='".intval($_POST['projectdivisions_id'])."', ".
 			"language='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['language']))."', ".
 			"req_table='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['req_table']))."', ".
 			"req_electricity='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['req_electricity']))."', ".
-			"req_special='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['req_special'])))."', ".
-			"summary='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['summary'])))."', ".
+			"req_special='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['req_special']))."', ".
+			"summary='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['summary']))."', ".
 			"summarycountok='$summarycountok',".
 			"projectsort='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['projectsort']))."'".
 			"WHERE id='".intval($_POST['id'])."'");
diff --git a/admin/reports.inc.php b/admin/reports.inc.php
index 6aa4d38..3d87fdb 100644
--- a/admin/reports.inc.php
+++ b/admin/reports.inc.php
@@ -890,8 +890,6 @@ foreach($report_stock as $n=>$v) {
 				} else {
 					if($f == 'static_text') $v = $d['value'];
 
-					$v = iconv("ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT", "UTF-8", $v);
-
 					$rep->label_text($d['x'], $d['y'], $d['w'], $d['h'],
 							$v, $show_box, $d['align'], $d['valign'],
 							$d['fontname'],$d['fontstyle'],$d['fontsize'],
diff --git a/admin/settranslation.php b/admin/settranslation.php
index c3fe921..dcdf269 100644
--- a/admin/settranslation.php
+++ b/admin/settranslation.php
@@ -34,9 +34,9 @@ foreach($config['languages'] AS $l=>$ln) {
     if($_POST['translate_'.$l]) {
         $q=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM translations WHERE lang='$l' AND strmd5='$m'");
         if(mysql_num_rows($q))
-            mysql_query("UPDATE translations SET val='".mysql_real_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST['translate_'.$l])))."' WHERE lang='$l' AND strmd5='$m'");
+            mysql_query("UPDATE translations SET val='".mysql_real_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['translate_'.$l]))."' WHERE lang='$l' AND strmd5='$m'");
         else
-            mysql_query("INSERT INTO translations (lang,strmd5,str,val) VALUES ('$l','$m','".mysql_real_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST['translate_str_hidden'])))."','".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST['translate_'.$l])))."')");
+            mysql_query("INSERT INTO translations (lang,strmd5,str,val) VALUES ('$l','$m','".mysql_real_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['translate_str_hidden']))."','".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['translate_'.$l]))."')");
     }
     else {
         mysql_query("DELETE FROM translations WHERE lang='$l' AND strmd5='$m'");
diff --git a/admin/student_editor.php b/admin/student_editor.php
index 05fa386..83bdea9 100644
--- a/admin/student_editor.php
+++ b/admin/student_editor.php
@@ -116,13 +116,13 @@ function students_save()
 			$dob=$_POST['year'][$x]."-".$_POST['month'][$x]."-".$_POST['day'][$x];
 			mysql_query("INSERT INTO students (registrations_id,firstname,lastname,sex,email,address,city,province,postalcode,phone,dateofbirth,grade,schools_id,tshirt,medicalalert,foodreq,teachername,teacheremail,year) VALUES (".
 					"'".$registrations_id."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['firstname'][$x])))."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['lastname'][$x])))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['firstname'][$x]))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['lastname'][$x]))."', ".
 					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['sex'][$x]))."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['email'][$x])))."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['address'][$x])))."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['city'][$x])))."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['province'][$x])))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['email'][$x]))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['address'][$x]))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['city'][$x]))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['province'][$x]))."', ".
 					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['postalcode'][$x]))."', ".
 					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['phone'][$x]))."', ".
 					"'$dob', ".
@@ -131,8 +131,8 @@ function students_save()
 					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['tshirt'][$x]))."', ".
 					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['medicalalert'][$x]))."', ".
 					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['foodreq'][$x]))."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['teachername'][$x])))."', ".
-					"'".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['teacheremail'][$x])))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['teachername'][$x]))."', ".
+					"'".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['teacheremail'][$x]))."', ".
 					"'".$config['FAIRYEAR']."')");
 
 			happy_("%1 %2 successfully added",array($_POST['firstname'][$x],$_POST['lastname'][$x]));
@@ -151,25 +151,25 @@ function students_save()
 			//UPDATE existing record
 			$dob=$_POST['year'][$x]."-".$_POST['month'][$x]."-".$_POST['day'][$x];
 			mysql_query("UPDATE students SET ".
-					"firstname='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['firstname'][$x])))."', ".
-					"lastname='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['lastname'][$x])))."', ".
+					"firstname='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['firstname'][$x]))."', ".
+					"lastname='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['lastname'][$x]))."', ".
 					"sex='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['sex'][$x]))."', ".
-					"email='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['email'][$x])))."', ".
-					"address='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['address'][$x])))."', ".
-					"city='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['city'][$x])))."', ".
-					"province='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['province'][$x])))."', ".
+					"email='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['email'][$x]))."', ".
+					"address='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['address'][$x]))."', ".
+					"city='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['city'][$x]))."', ".
+					"province='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['province'][$x]))."', ".
 					"postalcode='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['postalcode'][$x]))."', ".
 					"phone='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['phone'][$x]))."', ".
 					"dateofbirth='$dob', ".
 					"grade='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['grade'][$x]))."', ".
 					$schoolquery.
-					"medicalalert='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['medicalalert'][$x])))."', ".
-					"foodreq='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['foodreq'][$x])))."', ".
-					"teachername='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['teachername'][$x])))."', ".
-					"teacheremail='".mysql_escape_string(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",stripslashes($_POST['teacheremail'][$x])))."', ".
+					"medicalalert='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['medicalalert'][$x]))."', ".
+					"foodreq='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['foodreq'][$x]))."', ".
+					"teachername='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['teachername'][$x]))."', ".
+					"teacheremail='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['teacheremail'][$x]))."', ".
 					"tshirt='".mysql_escape_string(stripslashes($_POST['tshirt'][$x]))."' ".
 					"WHERE id='".$_POST['id'][$x]."'");
-			happy_("%1 %2 successfully updated",array(iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$_POST['firstname'][$x]),iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1//TRANSLIT",$_POST['lastname'][$x])));
+			happy_("%1 %2 successfully updated",array($_POST['firstname'][$x],$_POST['lastname'][$x]));
 		}
 		$x++;	
 	}
diff --git a/common.inc.php b/common.inc.php
index 9d710ef..51849f7 100644
--- a/common.inc.php
+++ b/common.inc.php
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
 //which in many cases (like ysf-fsj.ca/sfiab) is UTF-8.  This was causing a lot of the newly AJAX'd editors to fail on french characters,
 //becuase they were being encoded improperly.  Ideally, all the databases will be switched to UTF-8, but thats not a near-term possibility,
 //so this is kind of a band-aid solution until we can make everything UTF8.  Hope it doesnt break anything anywhere else!
-header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"); 
+header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8"); 
 
 //set error reporting to not show notices, for some reason some people's installation dont set this by default
 //so we will set it in the code instead just to make sure
@@ -100,9 +100,6 @@ if(!mysql_select_db($DBNAME))
 	exit;
 }
 
-//this will silently fail on mysql 4.x, but is needed on mysql5.x to ensure we're only using iso-8859-1 (/latin1) encodings
-@mysql_query("SET NAMES latin1");
-
 //find out the fair year and any other 'year=0' configuration parameters (things that dont change as the years go on)
 $q=@mysql_query("SELECT * FROM config WHERE year='0'");
 
@@ -421,7 +418,7 @@ function send_header($title="", $nav=null, $icon=null, $titletranslated=false)
 	if($HEADER_SENT) return;
 	else $HEADER_SENT=true;
 	
-	echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"iso-8859-1\" ?>\n";
+	echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" ?>\n";
 ?>
 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" >
@@ -728,7 +725,7 @@ function send_popup_header($title="")
 	if($HEADER_SENT) return;
 	else $HEADER_SENT=true;
 	
-	echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"iso-8859-1\" ?>\n";
+	echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" ?>\n";
 ?>
 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" >
diff --git a/db/db.code.version.txt b/db/db.code.version.txt
index 730a054..c4597e5 100644
--- a/db/db.code.version.txt
+++ b/db/db.code.version.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-172
+173
diff --git a/db/db.update.173.php b/db/db.update.173.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eecb96d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/db/db.update.173.php
@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+<?php
+function db_update_173_pre(){
+}
+
+/****
+This script takes all Latin1 character encoding in the database and converts it to UTF-8
+****/
+function db_update_173_post(){
+
+	// patch the committees_link table
+	mysql_query("ALTER TABLE `committees_link` ADD `id` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY");
+
+	// loop through every table in the database
+	$data = mysql_query("SHOW TABLES");
+	$fields = array();
+	$keys = array();
+	$allTables = array();
+	while($tableInfo = mysql_fetch_array($data)){
+		$tableName = $tableInfo[0];
+		$allTables[] = $tableName;
+
+		// loop through every field in the table
+		$query = mysql_query("DESCRIBE " . $tableName);
+		$keys[$tableName] = array();
+		while($rowInfo = mysql_fetch_array($query)){
+
+			// find out if this field is a varchar, char, text, or tinytext field
+			if(preg_match('/.*char.*|.*text.*/', $rowInfo['Type'])){
+				// it does, so this field needs to be converted
+				if(!array_key_exists($tableName, $fields)){
+					$fields[$tableName] = array();
+				}
+				$fields[$tableName][] = $rowInfo['Field'];
+			}
+			if($rowInfo['Key'] == 'PRI'){
+				$keys[$tableName][] = $rowInfo['Field'];
+			}
+		}
+	}
+
+	/* The array "fields" now contains the names of all fields in the database that
+	need to be converted (and only those that need to be converted), stored in this format:
+
+	[table1] => Array
+	    (
+		[0] => fieldname1
+		[1] => fieldname2
+		...
+	    )
+
+	[table2] => Array
+	    (
+		[0] => fieldname3
+		[1] => fieldname4
+		[2] => fieldname5
+		...
+	    )
+	 ...
+
+	Now we need to run through those tables one at a time and convert them
+	*/
+	$errorTally = 0;
+	echo "Updating records:\n";
+	foreach($fields as $tableName => $fieldSet){
+		// build the query that gives us the field values we need to update in this table, as well as the primary keys
+		$query = "SELECT `" . implode('`, `', $fieldSet) . '`';
+		for($n = 0; $n < count($keys[$tableName]); $n++){
+			$query .= ", `" . $keys[$tableName][$n] . "` AS __KEYFIELD_" . ($n + 1) . "__";
+		}
+		$query .= " FROM $tableName";
+
+		// fetch all of those values
+		$updates = array();
+		$data = mysql_query($query);
+		while($record = mysql_fetch_array($data)){
+			$updates[] = $record;
+		}
+
+		// now re-insert those values into the table
+		foreach($updates as $update){
+			$query = "UPDATE $tableName SET";
+			$useComma = false;
+			foreach($fieldSet as $fieldName){
+				$fieldValue = $update[$fieldName];
+				if($useComma){
+					$query .= ",";
+				}else{
+					$useComma = true;
+				}
+				$newValue = mb_convert_encoding($fieldValue, "UTF-8", "iso-8859-1");
+				$query .= sprintf(" `%s` = '%s'", $fieldName, mysql_real_escape_string($newValue));
+			}
+			$query .= " WHERE ";
+			for($n = 0; $n < count($keys[$tableName]); $n++){
+				if($n > 0) $query .= " AND ";
+				$query .= "`" . $keys[$tableName][$n] . "` = '" . mysql_real_escape_string($update["__KEYFIELD_" . ($n + 1) . "__"]) . "'";
+			}
+			$success = mysql_query($query);
+			if($success) echo '.';
+			else{
+				echo "\nFailed to execute query: $query\n";
+				$errorTally ++;
+			}
+		}
+		unset($updates);
+	}
+	echo "\nComplete with $errorTally failed queries.\n";
+
+	// now drop the id column that we added to the committees_link table
+	$query = "ALTER TABLE `committees_link` DROP `id`";
+	mysql_query($query);
+}
diff --git a/db/db.update.173.sql b/db/db.update.173.sql
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/db/db_update.php b/db/db_update.php
index 14b5fce..1595441 100644
--- a/db/db_update.php
+++ b/db/db_update.php
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ else
 
 mysql_connect($DBHOST,$DBUSER,$DBPASS);
 mysql_select_db($DBNAME);
-@mysql_query("SET NAMES latin1");
+@mysql_query("SET NAMES utf8");
 $q=mysql_query("SELECT val FROM config WHERE var='DBVERSION' AND year='0'");
 $r=mysql_fetch_object($q);
 $dbdbversion=$r->val;
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ if($dbcodeversion && $dbdbversion)
 				echo "db.update.$ver.sql detected - running...\n";
 				readfile("db.update.$ver.sql");
 				echo "\n";
-				system("mysql --default-character-set=latin1 -h$DBHOST -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS $DBNAME <db.update.$ver.sql");
+				system("mysql --default-character-set=utf8 -h$DBHOST -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS $DBNAME <db.update.$ver.sql");
 			}
 			else
 			{
diff --git a/install2.php b/install2.php
index 6b47be5..18228f8 100644
--- a/install2.php
+++ b/install2.php
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ mysql_select_db($DBNAME);
 
 			echo "Setting up database tables... ";
 
-			system("mysql --default-character-set=latin1 -h$DBHOST -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS $DBNAME <db/db.full.$dbcodeversion.sql");
+			system("mysql --default-character-set=utf8 -h$DBHOST -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS $DBNAME <db/db.full.$dbcodeversion.sql");
 
 			echo "<b>Done! installed database version $dbcodeversion</b><br />\n";
 
@@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ mysql_select_db($DBNAME);
 					echo "<b>db/db.full.$x.sql found</b><br />";
 					echo "Setting up database tables... ";
 
-					system("mysql --default-character-set=latin1 -h$DBHOST -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS $DBNAME <db/db.full.$x.sql");
+					system("mysql --default-character-set=utf8 -h$DBHOST -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS $DBNAME <db/db.full.$x.sql");
 
 					echo "<b>Done! installed database version $x</b><br />\n";
 
diff --git a/user_personal.php b/user_personal.php
index 8019918..7a5f678 100644
--- a/user_personal.php
+++ b/user_personal.php
@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ case 'save':
  	$save = true;
  	/* Set values */
 	foreach($fields as $f) {
-		$u[$f] = iconv("UTF-8","ISO-8859-1",stripslashes($_POST[$f]));
+		$u[$f] = stripslashes($_POST[$f]);
 		/* Allow the user to clear a field regardless of regex */
 		if($u[$f] == '') continue;