final public static function firstCharacter($strString)
    {
        if (defined('QCUBED_ENCODING')) {
            if (mb_strlen($strString, QCUBED_ENCODING) > 0) {
                return mb_substr($strString, 0, 1, QCUBED_ENCODING);
            } else {
                return null;
            }
        } else {
            if (strlen($strString)) {
                return $strString[0];
            } else {
                return null;
            }
        }
    }