public static String getEncodedPassword(String key) 
    {
        byte[] uniqueKey = key.getBytes();
        byte[] hash = null;
        try
        {
            hash = MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5").digest(uniqueKey);
        } 
        catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e) 
        {
            throw new Error("no MD5 support in this VM");
        }
        StringBuffer hashString = new StringBuffer();
        for ( int i = 0; i < hash.length; ++i ) {
            String hex = Integer.toHexString(hash[i]);
            if ( hex.length() == 1 ) 
            {
                hashString.append('0');
                hashString.append(hex.charAt(hex.length()-1));
            } 
            else
            {
                hashString.append(hex.substring(hex.length()-2));
            }
        }
    return hashString.toString();
    }