Thanks for pointing me to the list of possible network errors. This
information is invaluable. Too bad it is easily lost among other
details. I've seen similar errors in other modules that use socket
module and it's no wonder now why people can't handle them correctly. I
still feel that the information about error handling should be specified
at the very beginning before references to wizard books.

In the meanwhile I made a script that probes remote service with proper
timeout checks that can be included in examples chapter. It requires
time module to calculate timeout shared between two exceptions.
http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576655/