Old desktop programmer wants to create S+S project
The languages you list are all serverside components. The big question is whether you can sensibly build a thick client - effectively you could develop a multi-tier application where the webserver sits on the client and uses a webservice as a datafeed if/when its available but the solution is not very portable.
You could build a purely ajax driven website in javascript then deploy it to the client as signed javascripts on  the local filesystem (they need to be signed to get around the restriction that javscripts can only connect back to the server where they served from normally).
Another approach would be to use Google Gears - but that would be a single browser solution.
C.
I have an idea for a product that I want to be web-based. But because I live in a part of the world where the internet is not always available, there needs to be a client desktop component that is available for when the internet is down. Also, I have been a SQL programmer, a desktop application programmer using dBase, VB and Pascal, and I have created simple websites using HTML and website creation tools, such as Frontpage. 
So from my research, I think I have the following options; PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python or .NET for the programming side. MySQL for the DB. And Apache, or possibly IIS, for the webserver. 
I will probably start with a local ISP provider for the cloud servce. But then maybe move to something more "robust" and universal in the future, ie. Amazon, or Azure, or something along that line. 
My question then is this. What would you recommend for something like this? I'm sure that I have not listed all of the possibilities, but the ones I have researched and thought of.
Thanks everyone,
Craig