#!d:/perl/bin/perl.exe

use warnings;
use strict;
use IO::Socket;

$SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "timeout" };

eval {
alarm(3);

my $socket=new IO::Socket::INET(
   PeerAddr=> 'www.somedomain.com',
   PeerPort=> 80,
   Proto	=> 'tcp',
   Timeout	=> '3') || die "Could not Connect $!\n";

print $socket "GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n";

while(<$socket>)
{
# ....
}

alarm(0);
};