Old desktop programmer wants to create S+S project
If you wan't to run a version of the server on desktops, your best options would be Python, Rails, or Java servlets, all of which can be easily packaged into small self contained servers with no dependencies.
My recommendation for the desktop would be HTML 5 local storage.  The standard hasn't been finalized, but there is experimental support in Google Chrome.  If you can force your users to use a specific browser version, you should be OK, until it is finalized.
I would recommend looking at Django and Rails before any other framework.  They have different design philosophies, so one of them might be better suited for your application.  Another framework to consider is Grails, which is essentially a clone of Rails in the groovy language.
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