I am connecting to the url form my local machine and not across a network so the hub should not matter.
I was running apache 2.0.48 (the newer version) and I uninstalled that. I installed the older version (1.3....) instead and now everything runs fine and I'm able to get that test file to work!
I guess Apache 2.0.48 has issues with ZoneAlarm.
I really appreciate your help.
Looks like I'm on my way to learning Perl! I'm very excited.