my $url = shift;
	my $ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
	$ua->timeout(20);
	$ua->agent('Automated agent');
	# with cookie support...
	my $cookies = HTTP::Cookies->new();
	$ua->cookie_jar($cookies);	
	my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url);
	print STDERR "doing GET request to $url...\n";
	my $res = $ua->request($req);
	my $content = $res->content;        
	my $status = $res->status_line();	
	$ua->cookie_jar->extract_cookies($res);