my $s = new IO::Socket::INET ("www.example.com:80")
   or die "Couldn't connect: $!";

print $s "GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n";
if (<$s> =~ /HTTP\S+ ([345].*)/) {
   die "Error: $1";
}
...

##</code><code>##

use LWP::Simple;   # or you could do more advanced stuff

my $results = get("http://www.example.com/");
if (!defined($results)) {
   die "Error!";
}
...