Ideas for a week project

02. Aug. 2009 at 21:33 under Python, Mongodb, Gae, Idea, English

On 9th of August I return from vacations and I decided to research on some new area in the week after. Currently, there are two ideas, both easy-to-implement:

1. Ping my host every 5 minutes and send me email if down

I know there are many websites which touch this topic but; Most of them are limited and need subscription. I want something basic, to do just what I want.

WHY:

learn basic Google App Engine development
GAE provides reliable hosting with strong uptimes

2. List of websites mapped to tagged keywords

I have not found a simple, yet populated website that would provide list of websites based on some tag/keyword. Example: search for a "subtitle" tag and it would yield all websites where you can download subtitles for movies.

WHY:

first time get known with MongoDB and it's usage
learn how to estimate project timeline management with Pylons

What's your opinion? Out in the Web World, is there something exactly what I'm trying to do?