diff --git a/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/notebookapp.py b/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/notebookapp.py
index 7073ed92e..09fef2e19 100644
--- a/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/notebookapp.py
+++ b/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/notebookapp.py
@@ -447,7 +447,7 @@ class NotebookApp(BaseIPythonApplication):
         for port in random_ports(self.port, self.port_retries+1):
             try:
                 self.http_server.listen(port, self.ip)
-            except socket.error, e:
+            except socket.error as e:
                 if e.errno != errno.EADDRINUSE:
                     raise
                 self.log.info('The port %i is already in use, trying another random port.' % port)
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 241ab8b64..c6f5b2afa 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -265,6 +265,12 @@ if 'setuptools' in sys.modules:
     
     if PY3:
         setuptools_extra_args['use_2to3'] = True
+        # we try to make a 2.6, 2.7, and 3.1 to 3.3 python compatible code
+        # so we explicitly disable some 2to3 fixes to be sure we aren't forgetting
+        # anything.
+        setuptools_extra_args['use_2to3_exclude_fixers'] = [
+                'lib2to3.fixes.fix_except',
+                ]
         from setuptools.command.build_py import build_py
         setup_args['cmdclass'] = {'build_py': record_commit_info('IPython', build_cmd=build_py)}
         setuptools_extra_args['entry_points'] = find_scripts(True, suffix='3')