I want to build a real-time web application. but...

But I'm limited by my technical skills. I'm well-verse in Javascript, decent in PHP but have zero knowledge in Linux. I tried using APE(ajax push engine) but the learning curve is way too steep. Node.js require linux environment as well. But I really really want to build a web application which i could be proud of, something that is of use to people and maybe to remind myself that i'm not a lousy programmer after all.

I need some advise.