View/Preview Post shows my 404 error page & automatic updating

Sorry to bother you guys again. On another WP site I have I seem to be having trouble with viewing posts individually. If I click on “view post” or “preview” it forwards me to my 404 page instead of showing me the post. However, I don’t seem to be having this trouble with the pages. I am also using /%postname%/ for this WP site as well and the pages themselves show up just fine. The posts come up as numbers – which I don’t mind because their just update posts. I’m not sure if this error has something to do with the htaccess file or not.

As for automatic updating. I always seem to have trouble using any automatic update ever since version 2.8 came out. I was told that files should be chmodded to 644 and folders to 755. The problem is that having automatic update gives me the reason not have to open my ftp client and “un” chmod things or even go through the task of upgrading things myself. I actually preferred not having to do such tasks because I have trouble remembering what to do every time. (It gets to be a hassle with the plugins needing to be updated all the time.) But these days even with automatic update I still have trouble getting my plugins and wordpress to download correctly.
Am I missing something or is there a way around this so I don’t have to go back to upgrading plugins/wordpress myself. Like I said I hate the task of upgrading by myself and automatic made it easier on me. But every time I use automatic I have to “un” chmod everything and then it either doesn’t fully download or I get errors up the wazoo about how it couldn’t connect.