Sitecore does not process default URLs such as http://somedomain.com/somefolder/. An ISAPI filter is required. A free, lite version is available here: http://www.helicontech.com/download-isapi_rewrite3.htm.
Here's an example of the regular expression required:
RewriteLogLevel 9
LogLevel debug
RewriteRule ^/(sitecore.*)$ /$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^/([^\.\?]+)/?(\?.*)?$ /$1default.aspx$2 [L]