Thank you. I will definitely check out PhoneGap, but if it's just a cute substitute for learning Java/Objective-C, I figure I might be better served by learning the latter.

What is the practical difference between Rails and node.js? Is one harder or more transferrable than the other? Is one better for certain kinds of web development than the other?

I'm basically interested, I guess, in compiling the greatest base of practical, current knowledge in the next few months. I figure after that I can pick up more obscure knowledge as I go.