Kevin according to this http://www.adobe.com/support/captivate/downloads.html it appears that going to Help>Updates is the correct workflow as a subscription user. Please see Sign in or activation errors | CS6, CS5.5 Subscriptions, CS6 Perpetual - http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/activation-network-i ssues.html to resolve your current difficulties with the server being unavailable.
If you are on a managed network then you most assuredly will want to contact your I.T. department to verify that the Adobe Application Manager/PDApp.exe is being given access to the Internet.