If you get a card reader, no additional software is necessary. This is not only faster, but it saves your camera batteries. Your computer or printer may even have a card reader built into it. I have enough USB ports that I just leave it plugged in all the time.

First of all, be sure there are some pictures on the card. Plug the card reader into an open USB port. Plug the card into the appropriate slot on your card reader. I use Photoshop Elements and as soon as I plug my card into the reader, it starts its own card reader and displays a thumbnail of every picture on the card.

If this does not happen automatically, open your photo editing software. Do whatever you usually do to open a file, but click on the selector where you can change drives. Your card reader will be assigned a new drive name that will be one letter higher than you ever saw before, such as "Drive G:" or such. Then, just double click on the name of the file you want to open and it will appear in your photo editor.

You can buy various kinds of card readers to accomodate many different memory cards pretty much anywhere that they sell digital cameras. Even WalMart has decent card readers by the major manufacturers. Be sure you get one that accepts Sony Memory Sticks.