diff --git a/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py b/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py
--- a/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py
+++ b/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py
@@ -10,10 +10,10 @@
     :copyright: (C) 2009-2010 Marcin Kuzminski <marcin@python-works.com>
     :license: GPLv3, see COPYING for more details.
 """
-# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
-# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
-# as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2
-# of the License or (at your opinion) any later version of the license.
+# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
 #
 # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
@@ -21,22 +21,23 @@
 # GNU General Public License for more details.
 #
 # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
-# Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
-# MA  02110-1301, USA.
+# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 
-def str2bool(v):
-    if isinstance(v, (str, unicode)):
-        obj = v.strip().lower()
-        if obj in ['true', 'yes', 'on', 'y', 't', '1']:
-            return True
-        elif obj in ['false', 'no', 'off', 'n', 'f', '0']:
-            return False
-        else:
-            raise ValueError("String is not true/false: %r" % obj)
-    return bool(v)
+def str2bool(s):
+    if s is None:
+        return False
+    if s in (True, False):
+        return s
+    s = str(s).strip().lower()
+    return s in ('t', 'true', 'y', 'yes', 'on', '1')
 
 def generate_api_key(username, salt=None):
+    """
+    Generates uniq API key for given username
+
+    :param username: username as string
+    :param salt: salt to hash generate KEY
+    """
     from tempfile import _RandomNameSequence
     import hashlib
 
@@ -44,3 +45,24 @@ def generate_api_key(username, salt=None
         salt = _RandomNameSequence().next()
 
     return hashlib.sha1(username + salt).hexdigest()
+
+def safe_unicode(_str):
+    """
+    safe unicode function. In case of UnicodeDecode error we try to return
+    unicode with errors replace, if this fails we return unicode with
+    string_escape decoding
+    """
+
+    if isinstance(_str, unicode):
+        return _str
+
+    try:
+        u_str = unicode(_str)
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        try:
+            u_str = _str.decode('utf-8', 'replace')
+        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+            #incase we have a decode error just represent as byte string
+            u_str = unicode(_str.encode('string_escape'))
+
+    return u_str
\ No newline at end of file