1. Soldering. If you buy one that is solderless...well..i guess finding the points?
2. It is the application that boots up when you turn on your xbox. The green menu you get is Microsofts dash.
You do not need evox. That is just the first dash to be on the xbox and also happens to be the most simplistic as well, with many features. It supports its own version of game trainers, has function that lock/unlock your HDD, and can format your hard-drive. You can use any dash, most support ftp. I personally am using a hacked version of the MS dashboard.
"Slayers auto-installer" is evolution x, basically. The creaters of evox added scrypt functions for users to add in the configuration file. They can move, copy, and delete files off the HDD. Well, "Slayer" took these and created an image which you burn to a disk. The image contains various tools that, using the scrypt functions, will copy to your hard-drive. It has everything you need.