Hi all,
does anyone know a good way of selecting data into an output text file
with the column names at the top?

i.e. i'd like the text file to look like

name1,name2,name3
0,1,2
3,4,5
6,7,8

thanks,

You can't do it using a select to an outfile. From this thread:
http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/163185
I understand you may get what you want using batch mode.

Now I ran it directly from my command prompt and saved the file in the current directory (on WinXP, sure the same works for Linux)

I found I had to name the database i was using or of course got the no db selected error message.