I.E. and non-default port #s

[David Magier]

Colleagues,

Internet Explorer, apparently, cannot handle gopher connections where
a non-default port number is specified. That is, for example, one can
use IE to connect to the following URL:

gopher://gopher.cc.columbia.edu

This brings up the main Columbia gopher menu. But when one clicks on
the link there for "ColumbiaNet" one gets an error message that the URL is
invalid. The URL that corresponds to that purportedly invalid link is:

gopher://gopher.cc.columbia.edu:71/11

Although Netscape can handle such links perfectly, it appears that IE
is unable to handle the non-standard gopher port number 71. An example
of a web page with a link to such a gopher-based resource would be:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/area/sarai

>From that page, a user of IE would get an error message if they clicked
on the fourth link on the page (the one labeled "International
Directory of South Asia Scholars"), since that is a link to a
ColumbiaNet submenu on the server's port 71.

I've received complaints from various users of our webpages that they
are unable to access such links, and it always turns out that they are
using IE. I always tell them to use NetScape instead (because I prefer
it anyway!), but for those folks out there who are hooked (for some
reason) on IE, does anyone know of a workaround within IE to enable it
to recognize the validity of non-default port numbers in URLs?

Thanks.
David Magier
Director of Area Studies
Columbia University Libraries
magier at columbia.edu