diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/html/input.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/html/input.py
index 1f07f4ca41..ac16e459e8 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/html/input.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/html/input.py
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ from calibre.customize.conversion import InputFormatPlugin
 from calibre.ebooks.chardet import xml_to_unicode
 from calibre.customize.conversion import OptionRecommendation
 from calibre.constants import islinux, isfreebsd, iswindows
-from calibre import unicode_path
+from calibre import unicode_path, as_unicode
 from calibre.utils.localization import get_lang
 from calibre.utils.filenames import ascii_filename
 from calibre.ebooks.conversion.utils import PreProcessor
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ class HTMLFile(object):
             with open(self.path, 'rb') as f:
                 src = f.read()
         except IOError, err:
-            msg = 'Could not read from file: %s with error: %s'%(self.path, unicode(err))
+            msg = 'Could not read from file: %s with error: %s'%(self.path, as_unicode(err))
             if level == 0:
                 raise IOError(msg)
             raise IgnoreFile(msg, err.errno)
diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/date.py b/src/calibre/utils/date.py
index bc16ebb0b6..f67f51ffc6 100644
--- a/src/calibre/utils/date.py
+++ b/src/calibre/utils/date.py
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ def is_date_undefined(qt_or_dt):
         return True
     if hasattr(d, 'toString'):
         d = datetime(d.year(), d.month(), d.day(), tzinfo=utc_tz)
-    return d.year == UNDEFINED_DATE.year and \
+    return d.year <= UNDEFINED_DATE.year and \
             d.month == UNDEFINED_DATE.month and \
             d.day == UNDEFINED_DATE.day