^ Dang. Porn or ebooks.... porn or ebooks.... *The tension!!!!*
Must help giffbrad, though. (To promote William Gibson, if not the Reader.)
Seriously, though, it shouldn't be that much of a pain - I'd hazard that most of us don't have the same level of problems you've encountered. That's why it sounds like something local to your machine.
Did you try altering your spyware/virus/firewall settings?
I surfed Sony's knowledge base from the reader support section. One of the errors it gave suggested if it wasn't resolvable to call, "CONNECT customer service at (866) 919-7669."
The online support is at
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/mod...00®ion_id=1
But I didn't see anything there applicable to your specific error.
Hope you get it resolved!