After upgrading to Skype 5.5, I found that Japanese and Chinese characters showed as a series of boxes. I could type or paste them and they would be visible on the other end, but not on my end. Similarly, if the other person wrote Asian characters, they would not render correctly, like this:

A temporary fix is to change the IM font to Arial Unicode MS, which may have to be enabled from the control panel. Here are the steps:

1. In the Skype menu, select Tools | Options, then click on “IM & SMS”, then “IM appearance”:
   

   

   
   

2. Click on “Change font” to bring up the font dialog:
   

   

   
   

3. If “Arial Unicode MS” is available, select it, click OK, then Save, and you’re done.

   If “Arial Unicode MS” is not available, then click “Show More Fonts” to bring up the Control Panel’s Font selector:

   

   
   

4. Locate “Arial Unicode MS”, click on it to select it, then click on “Show” in the toolbar. Close the Fonts window (click the red X). You will have to close the Font dialog as well, then reopen it, in order for the Arial Unicode MS font to be displayed.
   

   

If you’ve been battling Virgin Mobile USA’s technical support drones and have been unable to get 3G data access, check that 3G data is enabled on your phone.

From the main screen:

• Press the menu button
• Select Settings
• Select Wireless & Networks
• Scroll to the bottom of the menu and select Mobile Networks
• Make sure “Data Enabled” has a green check mark next to it

Virgin Mobile USA (i.e. Sprint) was unable to solve this after three phone calls over the course of a day. Their technical support script jumps straight into cellular network settings and battery removal.

As an experiment in semi-anonymity, I thought I would see if I could activate my Virgin Mobile Optimus V in a more desirable area code than my own. After a bit of research, I decided to buy a $50 Vanilla Visa prepaid debit card from Walgreens. They claim the card can be used for online purchases, but you’ll need to register the card and provide a zip code for verification. You can enter any zip code you like, and no personal information is required.

I was able to successfully create an account with Virgin Mobile in the desired area code. However, the payment was rejected. One possible reason is that Virgin Mobile may not be able to process a credit card with an expiration date so far in the future. The initial payment form used a text field for expiration year, so I could enter anything I wanted. When I revised my payment method, the web form only allowed selection up to, I believe, 2016. After I changed my payment method to a different, real credit card, the account was activated (though I still had problems with the phone being activated on the network).

So, first off, I’m pretty sure you could get the Virgin Mobile phone number in any area code you want, anyway, because the first step in their registration process asks your zip code. Billing is done at a later point in the process, with its own zip code field. Second, Vanilla Visa cards claim they can be used online, but since they have expiration dates far in the future, the website you want to buy from may not be set up to process them correctly. Basically, the entire process was interesting, but a waste of time.

At some point, it might be fun to try again using a pseudonym. When the online payment fails, one could call and attempt to resolve the payment over the phone. The effort involved would quickly exceed my interest in anonymity, but it might be a fun exercise.

What version control system is really most popular? Not in terms of getting mentioned on blogs, but in real-world terms of jobs?

git, hg or mercurial, bzr or bazaar, darcs, svn or subversion, tfs or "team foundation server", cvs Job Trends

Git jobs – Hg or Mercurial jobs – Bzr or Bazaar jobs – Darcs jobs – Svn or Subversion jobs – Tfs or "team Foundation Server" jobs – CVS jobs

Source: this HN comment, though I added CVS to the mix.