diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index c9cc692..496eab0 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -5,3 +5,5 @@
 /build.sh.lviz
 *.pyc
 /build.sh
+.coverage
+coverage.xml
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 16cc83e..7b40c30 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -29,14 +29,12 @@ update_version:
 	git add GITHASH.txt && \
 	git add VERSION.txt && \
 	git commit -m 'Updated version number'
-test: install
+test:
 	pip install nose coverage --upgrade
-	cd efel/tests; nosetests -s -v -x --with-coverage --cover-xml \
-		--cover-package efel
-test3: install3
+	python setup.py nosetests
+test3:
 	pip3 install nose coverage --upgrade
-	cd efel/tests; nosetests-3.4 -s -v -x --with-coverage --cover-xml \
-		--cover-package efel
+	python setup.py nosetests
 pypi: test
 	pip install twine --upgrade
 	rm -rf dist
diff --git a/appveyor.yml b/appveyor.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..277c055
--- /dev/null
+++ b/appveyor.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+version: 1.0.{build}
+build:
+  verbosity: minimal
+environment:
+  matrix:
+    - PYTHON: "C:\\Python27"
+build_script:
+    - "python -m pip install numpy"
+    - "python setup.py build"
+test_script:
+    - "python -m pip install nose coverage --upgrade"
+    - "python setup.py nosetests"
diff --git a/efel/.gitignore b/efel/.gitignore
index 0d20b64..2dbc39f 100644
--- a/efel/.gitignore
+++ b/efel/.gitignore
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
 *.pyc
+/cppcore.so
diff --git a/efel/io.py b/efel/io.py
index b822e95..007dedd 100644
--- a/efel/io.py
+++ b/efel/io.py
@@ -1,6 +1,12 @@
-"""IO handler for eFEL"""
+"""IO handler for eFEL
+
+This module provides the user-facing Python API of the eFEL.
+The convenience functions defined here call the underlying 'cppcore' library
+to hide the lower level API from the user.
+All functions in this module can be called as efel.functionname, it is
+not necessary to include 'api' as in efel.api.functionname.
+
 
-"""
 Copyright (c) 2015, EPFL/Blue Brain Project
 
  This file is part of eFEL <https://github.com/BlueBrain/eFEL>
@@ -19,6 +25,9 @@
  51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
 """
 
+
+# pylint: disable=R0912
+
 import os
 
 # Python 2 has urlparse module, Python 3 has urllib.parse
@@ -38,20 +47,26 @@ def load_fragment(fragment_url, mime_type=None):
     Load a fragment (e.g. time series data) from a given URL
     """
 
-    parsed_url = up.urlparse(fragment_url)
+    parsed_url = up.urlsplit(fragment_url)
 
     scheme = parsed_url.scheme
     server_loc = parsed_url.netloc
-    path = parsed_url.path
+    path = os.path.normpath(parsed_url.path).lstrip('\\')
     fragment_string = parsed_url.fragment
 
     if mime_type is None:
         mimetypes.init()
         mime_type, _ = mimetypes.guess_type(path)
         if mime_type is None:
-            raise TypeError(
-                'load_fragment: impossible to guess MIME type from url, '
-                'please specify the type manually as argument: %s' % path)
+            _, ext = os.path.splitext(path)
+            if ext.lower() == '.csv':
+                mime_type = 'text/csv'
+            else:
+                raise TypeError(
+                    'load_fragment: impossible to guess MIME type from url, '
+                    'please specify the type manually as argument: '
+                    'path=%s, url=%s' %
+                    (path, fragment_url))
 
     if scheme == 'file':
         file_handle = open(os.path.join(server_loc, path), 'r')
diff --git a/efel/tests/test_basic.py b/efel/tests/test_basic.py
index 53faa93..8190942 100644
--- a/efel/tests/test_basic.py
+++ b/efel/tests/test_basic.py
@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@
 """
 
 import os
+import urllib
+import urlparse
 import nose.tools as nt
 
 
@@ -43,14 +45,18 @@
     'testdata')
 
 
-meanfrequency1_url = 'file://%s' % os.path.join(os.path.abspath(testdata_dir),
-                                                'basic',
-                                                'mean_frequency_1.txt')
+meanfrequency1_url = urlparse.urljoin('file:', urllib.pathname2url(
+    os.path.join(
+        os.path.abspath(testdata_dir),
+        'basic',
+        'mean_frequency_1.txt')))
 
-zeroISIlog1_url = 'file://%s' % os.path.join(os.path.abspath(testdata_dir),
-                                             'basic',
-                                             'zero_ISI_log_slope_skip'
-                                             '95824004.abf.csv')
+zeroISIlog1_url = urlparse.urljoin('file:', urllib.pathname2url(
+    os.path.join(
+        os.path.abspath(testdata_dir),
+        'basic',
+        'zero_ISI_log_slope_skip'
+        '95824004.abf.csv')))
 
 
 def test_import():
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 9d2ff1f..8d86c1c 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -14,3 +14,11 @@ parentdir_prefix =
 # Package support both python 2.6 and 2.7
 [bdist_wheel]
 universal = 1
+
+[nosetests]
+verbosity=2
+nocapture=1
+detailed-errors=1
+with-coverage=1
+cover-package=efel
+cover-xml=1