diff --git a/tracks/app/views/layouts/standard.rhtml b/tracks/app/views/layouts/standard.rhtml
index 0edb603f..e0b115b8 100644
--- a/tracks/app/views/layouts/standard.rhtml
+++ b/tracks/app/views/layouts/standard.rhtml
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 <head>
+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
   <%= stylesheet_link_tag "standard" %>
   <%= javascript_include_tag "toggle_notes" %>
   <%= javascript_include_tag "prototype" %>
diff --git a/tracks/app/views/project/show.rhtml b/tracks/app/views/project/show.rhtml
index 2afad4a3..8ec7b711 100644
--- a/tracks/app/views/project/show.rhtml
+++ b/tracks/app/views/project/show.rhtml
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@
 <!-- begin div.contexts -->
 <% @notes = Note.list_of(@project.id) -%>
 <div class="contexts">
+<% if @notes.empty? -%>
+  <p>There are no notes yet for this project.</p>
+<% end -%>
 
 <div id="notes">
   <h2>Notes</h2>
