Ascent is a Windows Phone 7 mobile client for Basecamp

Ascent is a Windows Phone 7 mobile client for Basecamp. With Ascent, you can create and edit milestones, to-do lists, and comment on project items. It costs $3.99.

Kompass, Basecamp portal for smartphones, now in free public beta

Bryte Software's Kompass is a universal Basecamp portal for the BlackBerry Smartphone, iPhone, Palm Web OS, Windows Phone 7, and Android. According to Adam Carlan, founder and CEO of Bryte Software, their goal is "to develop a solution for all mobile devices that allows team-members to effortlessly collaborate via Basecamp through a single application".

What makes Kompass for Basecamp different from other apps? Carlan answers:

Because it's a mobile web app there's no need to download, install, or update software. Any smartphone with an internet connection can immediately use Kompass integrate with Basecamp in real-time.

I personally had a huge need to access my to-do lists, milestones, and messages on my Blackberry. I was surprised to discover that there was not a single optimized Basecamp interface for Blackberry. The only mobile solutions that did exist were for other devices, and each application had their own methods of navigation. So, I envisioned a mobile solution that would bring instant availability, consistency, and real-time access to Basecamp across all mobile devices throughout my entire team. That idea grew into what is now Kompass for Basecamp. Now that Kompass is in free beta, project managers will no longer have to face the same challenges that I did. Now, I feel we've built the standard for mobile access to Basecamp.

Kompass is currently in free public beta. If you don't already have a Kompass account, you can sign up by visiting http://kompasshq.com and registering. According to Carlan, you'll be up and running with Kompass in less than 2 minutes.

Summit, third-party iPhone app for Basecamp, gets an update (plus it's half off for a limited time)

Summit is an iPhone app that lets you manage your Basecamp to-do lists, milestones, comments and messages on the go. Summit creator Andy Smart is releasing an update today (1/26/11) and sent us a note about it.

Added in the latest version (1.1):

- File attachment support (view attachments to messages and comments)
- Edit support across all items (items, messages and milestones)
- Offline caching, which kicks in when the network goes (if you were on a train and went through a tunnel for example)
- Redesigned "dashboard" view

I've also switched to the oAuth API, meaning users login with their 37signals ID and access all their accounts from one login (which is great!)

Summit will be $1.99 (50% cheaper) for a limited time, making it the cheapest full Basecamp client in the store.

Summit at the iTunes App Store.

Are My Sites Up White Label, a website monitoring service, now syncs with Basecamp and Highrise

Website monitoring service Are My Sites Up also offers AMSU White-Label which lets you resell the service to others and manage it all from a "lovingly crafted" web interface. Now, the white label service syncs with Basecamp and Highrise too.

One of the main reasons that we built Are My Sites Up White Label was for web development companies who have clients whose websites they’d like to monitor. Millions of people, (including lots of web development companies) are Basecamp and/or Highrise users. We’ve just made it super simple to import your clients and their website addresses from either, or both of them, so you don’t have to re-enter all of their information into AMSUWL.

Learn how to turn on AMSU White-Label integration with Basecamp and Highrise.

Geckoboard delivers a real-time status board for your business that integrates with Basecamp

Geckoboard is a hosted, real-time status board serving up "a live view on the health of your business." Basecamp is one of the tools it integrates with.

Geckoboard founder Paul Joyce says, "This allows business owners to see an up-to-the-minute view of their entire operation. It's not an analysis tool. It's more like how you would use the dashboard of your car while driving on the freeway; you glance down to check your speed, oil pressure, fuel gauge, and whether your lights are on."

For more information, visit Geckoboard.com.

QuickFire makes it easy to add To-Dos into Basecamp from your iPhone

QuickFire is a third-party iPhone app that focuses on getting your To-Dos into Basecamp as quickly as possible.

Enter your To-Do, pick your project, select a due date, assign it to someone, and tap save. Your To-Do is in now Basecamp...

Whether it's a great idea for a blog post, a request from a client, a phone call you need to make, or task you need to assign. Whatever the task is, QuickFire will make sure it gets into Basecamp while you are on the go.

Headquarters is a Basecamp app for "people who get things done"

Headquarters is an iPhone app for Basecamp. It combines the ability to manage Basecamp with the feel of a Get Things Done app. According to the developers at Select Start, it's designed "from the ground up around productivity, relevance, and ease of use."

What's the difference between Lite and Pro versions?
Both apps are fully functional, but Lite gives you a great opportunity to "try-before-you-buy". The Lite dashboard still shows you items from all of your projects, but only allows you to explore a single project and add a single account. It's perfect for the Basecamp Free Plan.

Why should I buy the Pro version?
Headquarters Pro ($4.99) is for anyone who has a paid Basecamp account. It has support for multiple accounts and projects, and additional features in the future like time tracking.

Support for time tracking and UI updates are coming to the app soon too.

Mountain Desk is a desktop application for Basecamp

Mountain Desk is a (third-party built) Basecamp desktop application for Windows and Mac.

So how does Mountain Desk work? Well its an application developed in Flex and deployed via the Adobe AIR platform. Once you launch the application and sign in to your account (with support for multiple accounts), the application immediately starts to retrieve your data from Basecamp. You can now work just like you would normally using Basecamp while all your changes automatically stay in sync. Furthermore unlike regular Basecamp, you can continue to work even when there is no internet connectivity. So if you are on the road, travelling by air or on a client site, the application continues to function normally and allows you to make changes and additions to your project data. As soon as mountain desk detects internet connectivity all your changes are automatically synced.

Mountain Desk also has a mobile (tablet edition) in the works that will be released soon.

Macworld looks at how Spootnik bridges Basecamp and OmniFocus

OmniFocus is a native project manager for Mac, iPhone, and iPad that you can bridge to Basecamp with a product called Spootnik. Macworld recently explored the connection.

Spootnik can sync Basecamp with just, say, an iPhone or iPad (no Mac version is needed as an intermediary), or with every type of Apple-made device you can throw at it. It also provides a separate Web interface for editing your OmniFocus tasks in a browser.

You can customize which Basecamp projects and task lists you synchronize, as well as how often Spootnik should sync. Basecamp projects become folders in OmniFocus, and Basecamp task lists become to-do lists under each OmniFocus project folder. If you assign tasks to team members in Basecamp, their names become contexts in OmniFocus for yet more organizational power.

Read the full piece.

The Bee, online invoicing app, imports time entries from Basecamp projects

The Bee is an online invoicing and light bookkeeping app for freelancers, contractors, solopreneurs, and other service providers. And it now integrates with Basecamp time entries in a "special" way according to Founder (Beekeeper?) Scott Miller:

Sure, you can pull time entries from your instance of Basecamp to create invoices in the Bee. You can also pull time entries from projects found in your client's Basecamp instance. This is really helpful, if you are collaborating on projects as a freelancer or subcontrator.

Here's a screen shot and link to a short video showing the integration in action.

More info on The Bee.