The following is my first script created using the Llama and the help of the Monks hereabouts to whom I am very grateful. I have added vars for the bits most likely to change or which are repeated and made modifications based on all responses to my posts. I would like to ask for a critique of my programming so that I may know where I have used bad form, insufficient commenting, insecure methods, or shown insuffucient laziness etc.
The script is meant to check a password and, if correct, write form input to a text file which is used as an SSI. I want to learn to make dummy-friendly interfaces for clients to update the most frequently changed parts of their websites. It will become more elaborate as I try to make it edit a table calendar. That said here is the script.
TIA
jg

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use CGI qw/:standard/;

use CGI::Carp qw/fatalsToBrowser /;

my $q = CGI->new();

#declare some vars
my $mail ='menu@uranus.com';
my $path_to_text="/home/mysite/www/myfolder/my.txt"

# Parse Form Search Information
# if it's a single form value, map the value as a scalar, otherwise, t
+he value is
# an arrayref
my %FORM = map { $_, @{[ param($_) ]} > 1 ? [ param($_) ] : param($_) 
} param();

my $words = $q->param('words');   
          if ($words eq ""){
        $words = "no specials today";
          }
my $user = $ENV{'REMOTE_ADDR'};

my $pass = $q->param('pass');
   if ($pass ne "whatever"){
        open (TEXTFILE,"$path_to_text") || die "where's the damn file?
+ : $!";
      $words = <TEXTFILE>;
      close (TEXTFILE) || die "close damn you : $!";
        print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
        print "<HTML> \n";
        print "<body bgcolor=000000 text=99CCCC> \n";
        print "<CENTER><H1><font face=Arial>!Unauthorized Access!\n";
        print "<BR>";
        print "The menu for tonight remains \n";
        print "<font color = blue> $words </font>";
        print ". <BR> \n";
        print "<font color = red>Hey bub, stop messin' with my menu!\n
+";
        print "<BR>You are at IP address $user !";
        print "</H1></CENTER></font></body>";
        open  MAIL,"|mail $mail" or die "mail problem : $!";
        print MAIL "$user tried to get in using $pass for a password.\
+n";
        close MAIL;
        exit 0;
   }else{
    open (TEXTFILE,"$path_to_text") || die "where's the damn file? : $
+!";
    print TEXTFILE  $words;
    close (TEXTFILE) || die "close damn you : $!";
    print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
    print "<HTML><body bgcolor=000000 text=99CCCC><CENTER><H1> <font f
+ace=Arial> \n";
    print "The menu has been updated for you. <BR> \n";
    print "The menu for tonight is \n";
    print "<font color = blue> $words </font>.</CENTER></H1></font></b
+ody>";
        open  MAIL,"|mail $mail" or die "mail problem : $!";
        print MAIL "$user changed the menu $words.\n";
        close MAIL;
   }

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In reply to Critique my First Script for me? by jerrygarciuh

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