How to send videos through email on iPhone as attachment

Somewhere in the quest for the ultimate phone operating system, Apple lost touch of what is good and not good. I think when iOS 9 came, the way you could send email with attached videos changed. Before this you could go into your photo album, chose a video and share through email and the phone would re-compress the video suitable for email.

But now if you do that, it will try to attach the full video, which of course is a lot better quality, but will break the 5MByte/10MByte/20Mbyte attachment limit easily. What apple want you to use is to use a drop-box like way, where the video gets stored somewhere and you send the link.

Like the old way? I do, and it is still possible. Here is a step-by-step guide.

1. Open Mail and choose "compose new message"

2. Open "hidden menu" by pressing long

Enter the destination email and subject, then press long in the message field where there is no text (about three seconds). A menu bar will pop-up. Press the right arrow once.

3. Choose "Insert Photo or Video" from the menu bar

4. Select the album where the video is

5. Select the video

6. If the video is right, press "Choose"

7. Now the video will be re-sized and re-compressed

If the video is longer than 1 minute, you will need to select which minute to send

8. Send the email

Now you can send the video as an attachment in the email. Size will be up to about 5Mbyte which is a size all email can handle. 

Kangaroo PC - Added heatsink and fan

So, with the added (cut) heat sink to couple with the stock heatsink and sticking out of the box, I now get very low temperatures. From being throttled at 85C when playing videos from CBS.com, we now are under 60C and there is no noise to speak of. The fan is a 12V fan, but I run it on 5V off the USB.

Now, if there only was a way to overclock or lock the turbo mode for this x5-z8500 Intel chip... Then this Atom would be handling some light gaming in addition to good streaming.

Check out the photos. One photo has the heatsink/fan info. It is from an old pention cooler.

Kangaroo PC - Improved?

I first wanted to replace the stock heat sink with a new better, but as I could not find a good fitting one that was making contact with the CPU, but not shorting anything, I decided to just add a heat sink on top of the stock one. 

Made a hole in the chassis so the fins could stick up and applied some thermal paste.  New look:

I know the hole is ugly but I do not have nice tools to cut with. Now the same video as in previous post gives (after warming up)

Slightly better. Did not see the braswell  chip throttle. I might try to put a small fan driven by usb to see what it does. 

Kangaroo PC - inside look

When I was looking for a HTPC, I went for a used laptop with decent specs. But now with the fan noise and the cumbersome way to need to open the lid when turning it on, I decided to look again.

That's when I stumbled upon the Kangaroo PC. A small size, fanless PC with a Windows 10 Home licence for a mere $99. Can this be something? With a Intel Atom x5-Z8500 processor, that has hardware acceleration of HEVC/H.265 it sounded good. I ordered one....

No need to do a review as others have done it. However, it is almost perfect. What bugs me is that if I for instance watch Survivor or Amazing Race on CBS, on a browser (Chrome or Edge), it gets hot. Seems as if gets hot enough that the CPU is throttled. Check this video and photo:

Now, that got the engineer in me curious. Can we improve this? How have they solved the heat in this device. So, I started opening it. I will let the photos do the talking. There is a plastic "clam" on the top (near the white hole) that one simple bend (carefully) off, and it is only attached with double sticky tape.

After it is removed, then one can pry open the cover. You need to remove the two screws on the dock connector. They hold down the cover in the other end.

Now one can look.

Then we can unscrew the metal part (4 screws I think it was):

The main board is clamped together with a connector that sits below the battery. So pry that side up, carefully.

I continued... The heatsink is attached with three screws and when un-done, it comes off. It is quite light weight, and I would not really call it a heatsink. It is a heatspreader with some tiny, tiny fins. Barely any weight to it. Under there is another metal case that sits on top of the processor. This is probably due to emissions and needed to pass CE/FCC compliance. But it is probably not optimal for heat...

It comes off by carefully lifting it. Now the Intel Atom X5 Z8500 (Braswell) is exposed.

Now... I have not yet put it together. I am going to look if I can add a larger heatsink to this device.... Stay tuned.

Deal hunters

No activity on this blog, but maybe soon reasons for it. Meanwhile, if you are looking for camera deals, sign up for a free account at http://www.fatwallet.com/ and put in alerts for cameras. Recently there was a cheap Canon S100 for about $100 from canon (refurbished)

Low end shooter

If you have read a few, or more, of the posts here, you know that I am a huge user of Canon cameras. I have had a Canon point and shoot and a Canon DSLR for almost 10 years now, with frequent upgrades and changes. Lately I have shopped around on craigslist in my area and have a SLR setup of:

Canon Digital Rebel XSi 12.2 MP Digital SLR Camera
Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flash
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro

Not a bad setup if you ask me. I do not really feel a _need_ to upgrade to T2i or even the new 60D. Sure the video would be a nice addition and of course the speed and high ISO would be better, but from a pure image quality, it really do not add much. But... I wish that Canon updated their lenses more. Like the 50mm lens. It is so old and cheap feeling, not to even get started on the noisy and somewhat inaccurate auto focus. Sure, it can take real good photos, but still, why not update it?

Anyway, then while going over ad after ad on craigslist I found a cheap Nikon D60 kit with both the 18-55mm VR and 55-200mm VRlenses for a steal. A broken SD card slot cover was there, but otherwise it had only been used for some 1500 shots. I could not stop from also testing a new 35mm f/1.8G lens, as I favor prime lenses because of the higher quality. And, now I am not so sure I want to be a Canon shooter. I do think the XSi  is a nicer camera than the D60, but with the announced Nikon D3100 the playing field could be different. I could sell the D60 and my canon gear and have money left when done. I guess I have a few more days to think it over before the new Nikon is released. The D3100 seems to have nice features, and a nice decrease in noise at high ISOs. 

This is the time... to go streaming

Amazon just lowered their prices on the Roku box. I did a quick review back here. Since then they have updated the SW to have a super nice browsing and search interface for Netflix. You can get YouTube and many other "channels" on the Roku. This is so nice for a super small box that has built in WiFi. On the plus is also that there is no FAN, i.e. no noise, and it consumes something like less than ~7.5W worst case. Instant on also...

I like it so much that I got a second one for our other TV. There are three versions, the SD (Standard Definition, no HDTV support), HD and HD-XR. I think the only difference between the last two is improved WiFi on the XR. I have two of the HD and am happy with that :) If you do not want to order from Amazon, click here to order directly from Roku.

Canon MT 24EX macro flash

I have had the pleasure to get hold of a dedicated macro flash, the Canon MT-24EX. It looks like this on a Canon XSi with a 100mm f/2.8 macro lens:

It makes macro photography a breeze. With some simple snaps and twists and presses of buttons you can do stuff that would take multiple lights or remote controlled flashes to do without it. I think if you have a Canon SLR with a macro lens, this is an item you want. If you do some sort of (small) product photography, this is a neat thing to have. I have posted a quick video that kind of shows how it looks and how it can be adjusted.



I prefer to take macro photos with it in manual ("M") mode where I adjust the aperture to get the depth-of-field I want, the shutter speed to both reflect if I am hand-holding (like 1/200s) or if I have tripod mount (slower), and ISO fixed to 100 or 200 for best quality. Then the E-TTL of the flash system simply adjust the flash strength to make the exposure right. It is a breeze. Only drawback is that it is expensive and somewhat bulky.