I've tried using $ua->timeout(3); and it does not work for me,
this was why I was trying the alarm method.

As for use_alarm, see the code below from UserAgent.pm

# depreciated
sub use_eval   { shift->_elem('use_eval',  @_); }
sub use_alarm
{
    Carp::carp("LWP::UserAgent->use_alarm(BOOL) is a no-op")
    if @_ > 1 && $^W;
    "";
}
[download]

It appears that the documentation is out of date as this method is now depreciated.

Cheers

Cheshire Cat