I found this blog post today - it worked for me and seems really helpful & not everyone would think of. It allows natural sorting in MySQL:
http://blog.feedmarker.com/2006/02/01/h ... -in-mysql/
[HOW TO] Natural sorting in MySQL
Moderator: General Moderators
[HOW TO] Natural sorting in MySQL
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
Re: [HOW TO] Natural sorting in MySQL
It's not real natsort though. drupal's natsort for mysql is much better suited for sorting mixed alphanumeric data.