If you are dealing with text in a computer, you need to know about encodings. Period. Yes, even if you are just sending emails. Even if you are just receiving emails. You don't need to understand every last detail, but you must at least know what this whole "encoding" thing is about. And the good news first: while the topic can get messy and confusing, the basic idea is really, really simple. This article is about encodings and character sets. An article by Joel Spolsky entitled The Absolute Min...