store special characters in mysql

[eluser]cideveloper[/eluser]
2 questions.
1) What type of collation are you using on your database/tables? utf8, latin1, etc.
2) What are you using to manage/view your databases. phpMyAdmin, or some other software.

This issue is usually cause by either using incorrect collation which causes the values to be stored incorrectly or by the software used to manage the DB which causes the values to show up incorrectly even though they are stored correctly. I once had an issue with the pound symbol showing up wrong and it was the script used to display the character that was doing it.