title: UTF-8, and mbstring extension in php
body: <p>While I was converting my latin-1 mysql database into utf-8 i came across <a href="http://developer.loftdigital.com/blog/php-utf-8-cheatsheet" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this article (<a href="http://developer.loftdigital.com/blog/php-utf-8-cheatsheet" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://developer.loftdigital.com/blog/php-utf-8-cheatsheet</a>)</a></p>
  
  <p><strong><em>please note</strong> I have successfully converted my database and my app appears to be working/outputting correctly</em></p>
  
  <p>It the previously mentioned link it says about installing and using the mbstring extension and functions. This doesn't appear to be necessary, is this something i should consider, ignore or have to do?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance! </p>