I would move away from using phpmyAdmin, for one simple reason, you really DON'T need a security vulnerability on your server that has full access to your database.
What I started using is HeidiSQL (a windows client:
http://www.heidisql.com/ ).
The beauty behind HeidiSQL is that you can leave mysql running over loopback (disable tcp/ip), and SSH tunnel the client to your server, and connect over localhost.
You maintain a great level of security in this fashion, and HeidiSQL is much faster and responsive than phpmyadmin ever could be. Give it a try, I personally have switched awhile back, and never looked back.