雖然InstantRails 1.7搭配的是MySQL 5，但還是習慣在專案的 config/database.yml中設定unicode，這樣可以避免存進去拿出來的資料變成亂碼，或者使用phpMyadmin看的時候看不到內容。
設定方式類似底下：
adapter: mysql
database: houcan_test
username: root
password:
host: localhost
encoding: utf8
值得注意的是，之前寫utf-8可以過，在1.7這個版次寫 utf-8卻會說
C:\projects\xxx>rake db:migrate
(in C:/projects/xxx)
Character set ‘utf-8′ is not a compiled character set and is not specified in th
e ‘C:\mysql\\share\charsets\Index.xml’ file
rake aborted!
Can’t initialize character set utf-8 (path: C:\mysql\\share\charsets\)
(See full trace by running task with –trace)
那就寫utf8囉。