Hi, noclaim
I got the same problem as you described it. My jetBook Lite was bough from Ectaco in New York and was sent by airmail to me. (Living in Denmark as you can see).
I sent a email to Phil (technical support) at Ectaco and he suggested that I should try to update the firmware. This I did just a couple of hours ago, and now it seems to be fully functional again.
Maybe the same will work for you?
Find the update here:
www.jetbook.net/update.php
Regards,
Torbem