I have put together a compilation of photos and video that has been taken on holiday in Lanzarote this August when I have been scuba diving at various places on the island. Some of the places/dives sites shown in the video are:
On 15th October I will be changing my online presence from jonathan-adams.co.uk to iJonathan.co.uk. After some careful planning and consideration I have decided to make the move to a slightly more Internet related domain. I will be keeping my old domain name for a more professional use rather than using it as a personal blog.
I will be changing the website branding soon to represent the new domain name, I will also soon be updating the graphics to give my personal blog a new freshened up feeling.
As of 15th October Jonathan-Adams.co.uk will no longer forward to iJonathan.co.uk and you will then have to use my new website address to access my personal blog. My old website domain will then serve as a professional website address and will no longer be used for personal blog purposes.
At the time of writing this blog I am on holiday in Lanzarote on the Canary Islands. The spanish seem to like this drink called “Café con leche leche” which translates in English to ‘Milky milky coffee’. I thought I would give this drink a try and I have to say its the best tasting coffee I have ever had!! If you like sweet drinks and coffee this is a drink you really need to try!
There is this restaurant in Lanzarote called the Buffalo Grill and they serve massive rib steak. It has become kind of a tradition that once per holiday I go and have a massive rib steak:
Before
After
It has been ages since I last posted a blog post. Since I told u that I had pre-ordered my iPhone 4; I have received it, played with it, brought a case, and been refunded for the case.
Ok, let me bring you up to speed. At least once a month at school we have the EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) argument – Incase you don’t know here in the UK students who stay in education past the age of 16 and who’s parents earn below a certain threshold are entitled to a sum of money up to £30 pounds a week and the occasional bonus of £100 for doing such things like handing coursework in on-time and having 100% attendance for a term.
Here is the argument, I totally agree with the whole concept of EMA, yet the system needs a little rethinking. At the moment:
“Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a tax free benefit and pays up to £30 a week directly into your bank account if you stay on in education at school or college after you have taken your GCSEs.”
However the government say that EMA is tax free, which it correct but my argument is that students who have any sort of paid employment their EMA should come out of their tax allowance.
The whole idea of EMA is so that students can purchase school equipment and items that are needed for study such as stationary, calculators and printer ink. Students who do not receive EMA and have paid employment and earn over the income tax threshold or NI limit have to pay some sort of contribution to the government whereas a student who receives EMA and the sum of their EMA and monthly income pushes them over the tax thresholds to not pay any sort of contribution.
Most students are on the tax code 647L, which means that they can earn just over £6,470 per year pre tax. However a student who receives £30 EMA every week and all the bonuses would receive approximately £1,670 per year. This gives these students to earn an approximate £8,140 per fiscal year without being taxed on income. An EMA receiving student should have their EMA earning potential deducted from their tax code in order to give a fairer earning system for students aged between 16-18, giving them the opportunity to earn £4,800 pre tax rather than the previous £8,140.
National insurance contributions are also unfair when students have a job and receive EMA. The National Insurance ‘earnings threshold’ is £110 pounds per week (£440 per 4 weeks) and you pay 11% on any earnings over that amount. Students who receive EMA and also have paid employment have exactly the same ‘earnings threshold’ as students who receive no EMA. In effect students who receive EMA have the potential to earn £120 per 4 weeks above the £410 earnings limit, effectively allowing their monthly non-NI contributed income to be £530, instead of the NI earnings threshold deducted from their 4 weekly EMA sum of money (£410-£120= £290).
Having done the sums and concluded that there was unfairness, I decided to email Downing Street and today I received a rather official looking letter in the post:
It Read:
So I await a further reply from HM Treasury and see if anything comes from my email.
The new iPhone 4 became available for pre-order today and I am pleased to say that I have one coming on the 24th. I have no idea how I am going to receive the iPhone as there is not going to be anyone at home on the 24th, I’m sure ill come up with something.
I look forward to having a play with the new iPhone next thursday and you can look forward to some sort of review in a few weeks.
So it’s exam season again and we have just entered the last 6 weeks of the summer term of school, where has this year gone! It seems only a few months ago when we were back in year 11 just about to start our final GCSE exams. I specifically remember us all fretting (well at least I was) over how hard we thought the exams were going to be, looking back on it now they were so easy compared to A-level exams. They say the jump is the biggest you will ever make, they’re right! So with 5 exams sat totalling 8.5 hours so far, I only have another 1.5 hours to go before I can sit back, relax, and enjoy the good old british weather (at least while it lasts).
As all us Apple fans know, a huge announcement was made by Apple yesterday at WWDC. Apple introduced us to the brand new iPhone with an all new design, Steve calls it the iPhone 4. 
The new iPhone brings some amazing new features, such as:
The new iPhone starts to ship on June 24th, thats in 2 weeks time, pre-order will be available from next tuesday. Hopefully the phone will come out on pay as you go at launch because I am not willing to enter into another long contract when I am happy on my O2 iPhone simplicity tariff. So lets keep our fingers tightly crossed for some good news closer to next tuesday. If all goes to plan you can expect some sort of review/post on the iPhone 4 hands on in a few weeks time.
Other Updates
I am currently in the process of writing my review for the iPad 16GB 3G model which I expect to publish sometime in the next couple of weeks.
So it’s been quite a while since my last blog post and quite a few things have happened and arrived since then.
I remember last month telling you that I had ordered one of the new MacBook Pros with the core i5 processor and a high resolution screen. It took about 3 weeks to be delivered but it finally arrived and I am really pleased with it. The new processor makes the laptop much faster and run smoother than my old white MacBook.
Last Friday the UK saw the international launch of the revolutionary iPad. I hadn’t decided that I was going to purchase one until the Sunday after the launch day. So I phoned around desperately trying to get one but I was having no luck, iPad’s seemed to be scarcer than dogs with 6 legs. I eventually managed to secure one at curries just off Junction 9 of the M6 after getting the managers personal number from an un-cited source.
It’s now Tuesday evening at the time of writing and I am fairly pleased with the iPad and I a looking forward for more apps and games to be made available as in my opinion the selection is sort of lacking at the moment.
I will be posting a full review of the iPad in about a months time when i have had enough time to play with it and more apps have been made available on the UK app store. In the meantime I will be revising for my last set of AS level exams which are going to be taking all my time up over the next two weeks.
I have had no O2 service in my house since about 9.30PM this evening. After speaking to various people in my area we have concluded that this is an O2 problem and essentially an EPIC FAIL!!
Update: 11/5/10 @ 23:20:
