// private method for UTF-8 encoding
	function utf8_encode(string) {
		string = string.replace(/\r\n/g,"\n");
		var utftext = "";

		for (var n = 0; n < string.length; n++) {
			var c = string.charCodeAt(n);

			if (c < 128) {
				utftext += String.fromCharCode(c);
			}
			else if((c > 127) && (c < 2048)) {
				utftext += String.fromCharCode((c >> 6) | 192);
				utftext += String.fromCharCode((c & 63) | 128);
			}
			else {
				utftext += String.fromCharCode((c >> 12) | 224);
				utftext += String.fromCharCode(((c >> 6) & 63) | 128);
				utftext += String.fromCharCode((c & 63) | 128);
			}
		}
		return utftext;
	}

	function encode(input) {
		var output = "";
		var _keyStr = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=";
		var chr1, chr2, chr3, enc1, enc2, enc3, enc4;
		var i = 0;
		
		input = utf8_encode(input);
		
		while (i < input.length) {
		
			chr1 = input.charCodeAt(i++);
			chr2 = input.charCodeAt(i++);
			chr3 = input.charCodeAt(i++);
		
			enc1 = chr1 >> 2;
			enc2 = ((chr1 & 3) << 4) | (chr2 >> 4);
			enc3 = ((chr2 & 15) << 2) | (chr3 >> 6);
			enc4 = chr3 & 63;
			
			if (isNaN(chr2)) {
				enc3 = enc4 = 64;
			} else if (isNaN(chr3)) {
				enc4 = 64;
			}
		
			output = output + _keyStr.charAt(enc1) + _keyStr.charAt(enc2) + _keyStr.charAt(enc3) + _keyStr.charAt(enc4);
		}	
		return output;				
	}