Many of our followers know that Jennifer and I are parents to 3 kids that have quite a few activities. What that means for Jennifer and I, is that we get to sit around quite a bit while our kids are at dance lessons, baseball practice, etc. So we decided that we would upgrade our dish network tv boxes so we could watch tv from our iPads while we are not running errands when our kids are at their activities.

Now for the record, we already have Netflix and Hulu plus. So you are probably thinking "Why do they need more stuff to watch?" Well, I consider myself a semi-news junkie and it would be nice to flip on MSNBC or the local news to watch that I can't get on Netflix or Hulu. And I can only get away with so many Family Guy episodes before someone says "Can you put on something else?" Another positive for us with Slingbox is we can now watch Blackhawks and Cubs games on our devices. Even if we had the NHL or MLB packages we are not able to view them outside of the home due to blackout restrictions.

Well, our Slingbox adapter arrived yesterday and was uber easy to hook up. Step one is plug it into the box and boom...you're done. Step two is installing the Dish anywhere iOS app and login with your dish network account. Seriously, that's it.

The app took a few minutes of learning by navigating around. But all in all, it's fairly user-friendly. I figured out how to launch a "remote control" and change the channel in a couple minutes.

The app allows you to change the quality of the video you are watching. Standard Quality (SQ) and High Quality (HQ). The HQ picture was definitely nicer but would stop and start too often for me and it was frustrating. I switched over to SQ and the stop/start issues went away, but the picture quality was obviously not as good. So I put the Cubs game on and watched 6 or 7 innings of the game yesterday. They lost, but it was great. It was like I was sitting at home in front of a non-HD tv watching the game. This will really pass the time when we are sitting and waiting.

My final thoughts on this are that technology is awesome. I can watch tv (legally) virtually anywhere I am. I am a iOS developer myself, so when I say this I really mean it. The programmers who developed this technology are phenomenal. Job well done!

Today's post was written by Dave Devitt. Dave is the President and Founder of SYDCON, Inc. He is a web and app developer and dad of 3. He loves new gadgets (like Slingbox) sports and family. Follow him on Twitter or read about him on our About Us page.