Troubleshooting a JDBC connection

Hi all,

On a personal project, I am using a MySQL database hosted by GoDaddy. I would really like to manipulate the database from my dev machine. I have tried the Eclipse plugins Quantum and EclipseSQL with no luck. Both appear to be timing out.

I have seen some speculation online that GoDaddy does not allow remote access to hosted databases, but no one I can find has said this definitively. (Wouldn't that manifest itself as "Connection Refused", not "Connection Timed Out"?) What I know for sure is that I'll get no help from them. They only support their online admin tool, which is OK, but I'd really like to do it all from Eclipse.

My connection string looks like this:

jdbc:mysql://p41mysql57.secureserver.net:3306/dbname

I've also tried:

jdbc:mysql://user:pass-0VCB3zs9OV+crqEuOn8uL5TO9Ttj0Xgd0e7PPNI6Mm0@public.gmane.org:3306/dbname

I've also tried not specifying the port number, since it's not clear what port they are using.

I feel like there's a lot of "stuff" between me and connecting to the database. I'd like to remove as many variables as possible and concentrate on the connection. Is there some sort of simple command-line utility that will let me play with the connection string and just let me see if I can connect? Anyone have any other troubleshooting ideas?

Thanks,
Rob