SMF Links and SMF Articles character set problem

[oskars]

Hello!
I am using SMF 2.0 RC5 with UTF-8 language character set. (languages used latvian and russian).
I an using also language files to change interface and everything works Ok, including SMF inself, Simple portal and other mods.
The problem is with SMF Links and SMF Articles, which turns most of non-Latin characters to ? or some smily type.
As soon as I enter latvian characters like ēūīāšģķļžčņ or russian characters, for instance, Цитата от 13 Июня 2006, after submission these are no the same any more. The problem is with all the texts - category, topic, article text, link name e.t.c.

These mods are  cool, but as these characters are crippled, there is no use in languages having specific characters.
Please check it.

[SMFHacks]

Try changing the table type for the tables to utf8

[oskars]

Thanks for instant replay.
Must admit, that I am no expert in MySQL and table management. I using myadmin to do some things with it.
So I do not fully understand which of the parameters should I change:

Field name    
Data type    
Type width    
Type options    Case insensitive Case sensitive
Allow nulls?    Yes No
Default value    Don't change NULL Value
Part of primary key Yes No

As I understand, the main thing is type - but this is the same for most of tables - tinytext, text, longtext (not mentioning anything about character set used).

[SMFHacks]

It should be under Operations if you are using phpmyadmin you have to get inside the smf_links and smf_articles tables.

[hydrozagadka]

I operate on files, via Programmers Notepad, and I'm not sure where I should find these "tables" to change. I have the same problem with characters (utf-8 set) with SMF Articles, as Oskars earlier.

[SMFHacks]

Easier way would be to use phpmyadmin and change the tables to uft8 as the table type.