Dot Tunes does things that no other music sharing programs can do. I've also found Jeff to be responsive to requests for assistance. There are a few things that could be better, though:

* The product ends up being very, very expensive if you want full functionality. The program is "free" but any real functionality costs money. It is $100 to get access to all of the plugins. If you think you might remotely need more than a couple of plugins, it would be best to go with the bundle, or you are just wasting money.

* The authentication scheme is not customer friendly. If you do pay for functionality, you are only permitted to "register" once. If the app's preferences get damaged, you upgrade your computer or have to remove and reinstall the program, you will be stuck writing to Jeff and explaining why you need another activation. Jeff's been very understanding and fairly quick to respond, but any registration system that treats paying customers like criminals isn't a good one and should be changed.

* The program seems to forget or need to reimport the XML files from iTunes regularly. This requires user intervention and so you are stuck without service until you can get to your computer and reimport the XML files. Hopefully 4.2 will fix this. Time will tell.

* Artwork importing takes a very long time and you basically cannot do anything with dottunes during that time.

* You cannot run it as a faceless background app with a single menu bar item. It runs as a standard app which you must then hide if you don't want to see it.

* The hookup program functionality is NOT built-in. That will cost you extra. Yes, that's another "free" program that requires you to pay to use it. It also requires you to have a license for every computer you use it on. The hookup license should be free for anyone who's running dottunes in paid mode and the app to play it on other computers should be FREE, really free, not "free to download but not to use" free. Skip hookup and use Simplify Media (really free) instead.

On the plus side, 4.2 does tone down the DOTTUNES advertising, which is very welcome and the new UI is something of an improvement.

All-in-all if you have the money, dottunes is a very capable program.