What I normally do for improving my skills with a tool is to use it to write something that I'll find useful. I'm fairly picky about tools, so rather than use standard ones that everyone uses, I frequently write my own. Since I do database stuff quite a bit, I typically write little database whacking tools. I've got an SQL query tool that I use that does a few things that none of the commercially-available ones do. (Of course, since it's my own tool, and I don't care about the appearance, it's quite ugly.)

Since you're wanting to do some web stuff, and you mention log files, perhaps you should write a nice web log analyzer with a web front end. Or perhaps a systems monitoring page that you can use as your home page. Just pick an itch, and scratch it!

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.