my $times = 2;
my $minutes_threshold = 7200;

my $now = time();
my $oldest_time = $now - ($minutes_threshold*60);

my $user_status_file = "C:/temp/perl_logs/user_status.$user.txt";

open (USF, "+<", $user_status_file) or die "Failed to open User Status File file: $!";

# Now, read through the lines of the file 
# and see if n times occured in the last m minutes.

my $count = 0;
while ( <USF> )
{
    chomp $_;
    next if ( $_ < $oldest_time );
    $count++;
}
if ( $count > $times )
{
    print ADL "User exceeded threshold! $count \n";
}
seek USF, 0, 2;      #go to the end of the file - maybe you can remove this line
print  USF "$now\n";
close USF;