A very near-term heads up that I'll be participating in the RWW Live chat on mobile web development this afternoon at 3:30pm PST. I'm not yet sure how much focus will be on mobile web versus mobile native applications, but hopefully my perspective on web sites targeting handhelds and iPhones will be useful in rounding out the conversation.

FYI, those of you with a Ning social network can look forward to an iPhone-optimized interface after tonight's release. It will be an iPhone web app (not a native app), and while iPhones will automatically be shown the iPhone interface, you can go there manually by browsing to http://yournetwork.ning.com/m. While you can participate in the network, not every feature is available for the iPhone interface.

We're glad to see companies moving forward with developing optimized versions of their sites for the iPhone and other handheld devices -- while "normal" sites are often tolerable on  an iPhone, sometimes it's better to present a faster, more usable interface that focuses on what a mobile user likes to do the most.

Edit: the release has been pushed back to Friday, September 26th. Then again it's been pushed back a few times before, but we shall see.

I stumbled across two lightweight web-based database administration tools: php Mini Admin and QDBA. Both are single PHP files, so you can just upload them to a server, specify your database login information, and be able to browse tables, edit data, and do other administrative tasks without installing the effective-but-heavy phpMyAdmin or allowing direct remote database access to your MySQL server.

Note that you should still take proper security measures when using these web-based tools (SSL, restrict access using ACLs or IP, don't let users log in as root), but overall they're easy & helpful. Of the two, QDBA is more attractive & usable, but is primarily used to view and edit data. phpMiniAdmin is spartan but offers many additional built-in features like import/export, table optimization & repair, and other "DBA" tasks. Both tools offer a SQL query window were you can execute raw SQL commands against the server.

phpMiniAdmin Screenshot:

QDBA Screenshot

We're happy to announce the beta launch of LibMob, a mobile web site allowing you to get information about a particular book while you're at the book store or the library. LibMob can be accessed by SMS, iPhone, or most cell phones with web access. So the next time you want reviews or online prices for a particular book, try out LibMob.

We've gotten some good feedback about our new design, and as part of our ongoing redesign we rolled out an iPhone version of our web site. If you're looking to make a mobile version of your web site, contact us.

We rolled out a fresh new look for our corporate site today to help visitors and clients learn more about what we do. Phase 1 was to focus on the main site, with a blog & groups redesign coming in the next week or so. We're pretty happy with our new design, and it should help us communicate better with our site visitors.

A quick reminder that Portland Open Beer Club is this Thursday, 5pm, at Bailey's Taproom in downtown Portland. Swing by, have a brew, & chat about the web.

Portland Open Beer Club and Portland Open Coffee Club are monthly meetups offering a low key, agenda-free format centered around meeting like-minded individuals and talking about technology, the web, and startups.

The Portland Open Beer Club meets the second thursday of every month at Bailey's Taproom at 5pm.

Both meetups are part of the international Open Coffee Club movement. Read more at http://www.opencoffeeclub.org or http://www.portlandopenbeerclub.com

We're proud to annouce the launch of one of our newest community sites: Vanilla Elephant. It's a custom social network for musicians, allowing independent artists to win cash prizes through weekly and monthly contests, sell music, videos, ringtones, and mobile content, and in general connect with their fans through a variety of electronic media.