# change the your_database_name_here bit, save this as some_file.rb, and ruby some_file.rb. changes all tables in db to utf-8, then changes the default for the db itself to utf-8
# so hopefully future tables will also pick up the right charset.
require 'rubygems'
require 'active_record'

db = "your_database_name_here"

sqlconn = ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(
          :adapter  => "mysql",
            :host     => "localhost",
              :username => "root",
                :password => "the_password",
                  :database => db
)

conn = ActiveRecord::Base.send(sqlconn.adapter_method,sqlconn.config)

conn.tables.each do |table|
            q = "ALTER TABLE #{table} CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci"
                puts q
                    conn.execute q
end
conn.execute("ALTER DATABASE #{db} DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 ;")