While many users feel the skin leaves something to be desired, usability has been greatly enhanced.
On the eve of release, designers and critics alike are praising the much anticipated release of the newest version of Slut. Whether you are a casual user or a diehard Slut enthusiast, the robust build promises a hole new experience in high speed access.
"The biggest improvement is the hot-swappable ports," explains John-Thomas Peters, head engineer for the project. "Now if you have failure on one port, you can just ping the other one and access it without missing a beat." Slut 2.0 will also still allow you to use Comm1 as an onboard backup port. "Also, we've had the motherboard fixed to prohibit undesired add-ons, so [users] don't have to download a patch every month."
Manual port swapping can still be achieved with the text command: [esc] @Y [end] & [shift]
[ctrl]
C: [enter] :
###
Command for voice recognition is: "Escape at the Y, end and shift, control, see colon, enter colon, pound, pound, pound."
Since port failure and port redundancy is uncommon, users may reconfigure the system to allow multiple users, effectively doubling RAM. Due to this increased capacity, the task manager can take on more users at once and handle a much greater load.
Usage of accelerators prohibit systems from going into sleep mode, which can cause premature failure.
The skin, interface and memory remain unchanged "because we've pretty much come as far as we can on those fronts," explains John-Thomas. "Accelerators are available to increase system speed, but they can prohibit sleep and stand-by modes, and it requires additional cache." He also added, "if you look at the build really close, it ain't pretty, but you have to step back and view the Slut as a whole [sic]."
Address blocking has been enabled for users wishing to utilize their Slut's open nap on a peer-to-peer basis as anonymous users, but a firewall is strongly recommended to prevent the spread of virus's and worms.
Pound for pound, it's the best system out there. Release of the SlutLite Suite may come as soon as Spring '04.
By first quarter of next year, SlutServer 2.0 will be released for those needing to host a single Slut across a network of users, though bus speed is still cumbersomely slow. Existing Slut and SlutServers can be upgraded and brought up to speed.
One insider who was offered a hands-on exploration of a slightly stripped down build pointed out, "they still require a good hard drive and will not back up onto your 3 1/2 inch floppy. One advantage is now you don't have to back up to zip, but you still can. Just like the previous versions, you're never going to truly appreciate Slut until it's gone down on you."
This is a tremendous leap forward, but don't expect it to be the last Slut you'll ever need. SlutLite, SlutExpress, SlutPro and a laptop version are all in the works. Anticipated features for future home versions of Slut are hoped to include automatic debugging, secure socket handling, popup handling, detailed error messages, downtime guarantees, improved user privacy, maintenance wizard, backdoor security protection, removal of bad strings, corrected overheating problem during heavy usage, ability to hard or soft boot, dial up access, manual override commands, improved video compatibility, voice recognition, alert muting or suppression, and to not be so SCSI.
At a public release, self-proclaimed Slut experts found the build to be as good as expected.
