The iPhone 3G price plans for Rogers Wireless in Canada were announced today. As per usual it looks as though we are being ripped off compared with the UK and USA.

Not only are you required to sign a 3 year contract, Rogers also nickel and dime you with “system access fees” and making caller display an added extra (what year is this??).

Here’s a nice chart I’ve made that shows the cost breakdown of owning an iPhone in Canada compared with the USA and UK. You’ll be amazed at the difference in cost.

(Click for a larger version)

$3,225! And that is just for the basic plan here in Canada. Sheesh. At least it’s here I suppose?

Update: A nice quote from someone over on the ehMac forums:

“So in other words for the same price as the US we get about a third of the text messages, a third of the anytime minutes, no call display, evenings that start at 9 pm instead of 7 pm and an extra contract year. Oh and I almost forgot, 400Mb of data instead of unlimited.”

Update II: What can we do as Canadians? Here’s a couple of things:

• Learn more about bill C-555
• Sign the bill C-555 petition
• Join over 18,000 24,000 32,000 other unhappy potential Rogers’ customers and sign the petition at: ruinediphone.com

Not a bad title for a post about code, so if you’re reading this expecting something non-geeky then look away now! Ready?

Since WordPress 2.5 a new $wpdb function has been included called ‘prepare’. I’ve been using the new function extensively throughout BuddyPress. As it’s so new, there are still quite a few plugin developers who are not aware of its existence.

So what does ‘$wpdb->prepare()’ do exactly? Simply put, it replaces the old ‘$wpdb->escape()’ function for escaping variables passed into an SQL statement. Escaping variables is great for preventing SQL injection attacks and keeping the bad dudes out.

With $wpdb->escape you would usually do something like this:

$field1 = $wpdb->escape("Andy Peatling");
$field2 = $wpdb->escape("It's like that, and that's the way it is.");
$id = $wpdb->escape($_POST['id']);

$wpdb->query( "INSERT INTO $wpdb->sometable( id, field1, field2 ) VALUES ( $id, '$field1', '$field2' ) ");

This works great, but you still have to deal with remembering to put single quotes around strings, and calling the function for every single variable you want to pass into the query.

The $wpdb->prepare() method simplifies things further, generally making your life a lot easier by combing everything into one call:

$field1 = "Andy Peatling";
$field2 = "It's like that, and that's the way it is.";

$wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare( "INSERT INTO $wpdb->sometable( id, field1, field2 ) VALUES ( %d, %s, %s )", $_POST['id'], $field1, $field2 );

Notice that you no longer have to worry about quoting strings. Instead of including the actual variable name within the query you simply place a ‘%d’ for integers and ‘%s’ for strings. Then for the second parameter onwards you pass the variables in the same order they are in the query.

The new WordPress coding standards page touches briefly on the new prepare function. The WordPress Codex however still includes references to the escape method which I will be helping to update.

Leave any questions in the comments, I’d be happy to help.

As one of the millions who participated in the Firefox Download Day, I’ve enjoyed using Firefox 3 for the past few days.

Firefox has improved hugely on the Mac platform. It now feels less like a clunky Java app, and more like a native application should. The page load times, memory usage and launch speed have been significantly improved.

Despite these huge improvements, the new default theme doesn’t quite feel right to me. It’s like a hybrid of Mac and Windows interface standards, and in my opinion it ends up looking a bit quirky.

The default mac theme for Firefox 3

Thankfully Annorax has stepped in and created a whole bunch of Mac styled themes for Firefox 3. I’m using the GrApple Yummy (blue) theme and it’s fantastic. Firefox looks and feels almost identical to Safari.

Firefox 3 with the GrApple Yummy (blue) theme installed.

Head over to takebacktheweb.org and check out the themes on offer. Each one has subtle differences so you can choose which theme suits you best.

Update: Top 10 Firefox themes via Rebecca

Mockups of the new BuddyPress default theme. The theme has been designed so that colors and the logo can easily be changed. It has also been created to make use of every BuddyPress feature, theme designers can then cut and paste functionality they’d like in their own themes.

The theme will pass most of the admin area functionality through to the front end. However, all components can still be controlled within the admin area itself. This means simple BuddyPress compatible themes can be created, without having to create designs for each component.

There will be an option to set either the profile or the blog as the default screen for a user.

Photo: Mostly Lisa

Thanks to the organizers and everyone who came out last night to Tazzu WordCamp Vancouver. The place was absolutely packed out and really shows that Vancouver is a hot bed for WordPress enthusiasts and blogging in general.

I had the chance to meet a whole bunch of people, sorry to those who I didn’t get a chance to speak with. I hope everyone at least got a WordPress sticker!

The next event will hopefully be held in a larger venue so we can get more people seated. I might even consider presenting something on BuddyPress.

Event wrap-ups from: Duane Storey, Hummingbird 604, Miss 604

Photos of the event are on Flickr tagged with ‘tazzuwordcamp‘.

WordPress 2.5 was released today along with a completely new WordPress.org site design.

If you haven’t seen or tried 2.5 yet, I really recommend upgrading. It contains a huge number of updates as well as an excellent administration area overhaul.

I’m particularly happy with the new visual editor that now leaves your HTML untouched. This is going to make using WordPress as a CMS a whole lot better.

A lot of work has gone into this release, thank you to everyone who helped out, a fantastic job well done.

I haven’t publicized this at all as it is reasonably fresh. I’ve put together a one page site that syndicates all of my online content creation. I call it “Andy In Life“.

The site is a combination of RSS feed rendering and API utilization from all the major social sites and tools I use. I just felt like a lot of this content was getting lost, and it was nice to bring it all together in once place.

Also, Yahoo Pipes - very cool. I used YP to merge all of my RSS feeds together, manipulate them a little, and spit out what I call my “Mega Feed“. The feed contains everything I put on the web, including anything from this site, so grab that and you’ll be constantly bugged by my daily life.

Today is my first day working for Automattic! For the past several weeks I’ve been talking with Matt and Toni about the direction of BuddyPress and what I did last year with the ChickSpeak project. They have given me the opportunity to come on board and concentrate on the development of BuddyPress under the Automattic umbrella.

The talent they have on board at Automattic is incredible, some of the brightest minds in the game. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to work with everyone on a daily basis and soak up some of the tremendous knowledge available.

I’ve been all consumed in WordPress for the past two years now, I think almost every single site I’ve built since working as a freelancer has used WordPress in some way. To get the opportunity to concentrate fully on WordPress everyday, and also the chance to help mould WordPress in new ways is a fantastic one not to be missed.

Also, the buddypress.com domain is in the process of being moved, so further updates on the project will be available there once the move has been completed.

To celebrate the pending move to Vancouver next week, I’ve just completed and launched a completely new site design.

The site is finally back on WordPress, having languished in the world of Textpattern for the past two years. WordPress blows Textpattern away when it comes to administration functionality and general ease of use.

The portfolio section has undergone a big revamp with the focus more on screens rather than long explanations. There is also a fancy new “Latest Projects” section on the home page which has been given the scriptaculous touch.

I’ve always loved dark designs, I’m really happy to bring a dark touch to the company site. The text has been given an off-white colour, so hopefully not too eye straining for those reading blog articles.

Have a good look around, feedback is encouraged!