direct connect doesnt have anything to do w/ gnutella , but its a good peer to peer file sharing network nontheless. In order to get what you want, you need to share files and a lot of them to get into any of the good hubs which automatically takes care of file availability dilemas. In addition, in order to join some of the real good hubs, you have to be voted in , and share atleast say 15 gigs or more. You can resume partial files, chat, and start your own hub which is one of the neatest features of direct connect. Also, you have the ability to save files directly to a zip drive.