#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

#
#  READ THE SECURITY NOTICE BELOW!
#
#  This is for people that run around life with the all important voti
+ng nodelet turned off.
#  Don't you hate suddenly seeing what appears to be an off-topic thre
+ad, only to realize
#  that a new voting booth has been put up, and you're not in on the a
+ction?
#
#  Well, thanks to Twitching Monk Software's latest release, you can b
+e a member of the
#  trendy 'Vote Early, Vote Often' crowd.  Simply tune the parameters 
+below for your
#  mail server and account, toss it in a cron job, and voting glory wi
+ll be yours (and
#  remember... All your vote are belong to us!)
#
#  This script gets the past polls page, compares it to the previous p
+age stored in the
#  __DATA__ section of the script.  If they're different, an email is 
+sent, and if the email
#  succeeds, the script rerites itself.  I highly recommended that thi
+s be set to '600'
#  permission set.
#
#  I'd probably recommend that a copy of the script be made, once you'
+ve set the parameters,
#  just in case it manages to corrupt itself somehow.  It's not likely
+, but anything is
#  possible with a TMS release.  If you felt really tricky, when the s
+cript is first run
#  with nothing after the data section, it would get the length of the
+ script, and write
#  that as part of the data section.  Then, after it stripped off the 
+old __DATA__, it would
#  perform a check to see if it's still the same length as what it was
+, and abort if not.
#
#  SECURITY NOTICE:  Set this script to 600 permission.  You don't wan
+t other people re-
#                    writing it for you, with something far nastier th
+an checking for a
#                    new voting nodelet.  Like, oh say, posting DiscoS
+tu quality articles
#                    under your user ID...  Or erasing all your tetris
+ high scores.
#
#  Requires the following modules:
#    LWP::Simple
#    MIME::Lite
#
#  Copyright 2000,2001(c) J.C.Wren   jcwren@jcwren.com
#  A production of Twitching Monk Software
#  No rights reserved, use as you see fit.  I'd like to know about it,
+ though, just for kicks.
#
#  2001/03/18 - 1.00.00 - Initial release
#  2001/03/18 - 1.10.00 - dkubb's optimized file handling, and fix of 
+a potential bug if
#                         vroom ever started including \n's in the dis
+playtype=raw pages.
#

use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use MIME::Lite;

#
#  Tune these to your requirements
#
use constant cMailto      => '"A. User Name" <pmuser@mysite.com>';    
+   # who the mail goes to
use constant cMailfrom    => '"A. User Name" <pmuser@mysite.com>';    
+   # from is the same as to, for me
use constant cMailsubject => 'Perlmonks.org New Voting Booth Up!';    
+   # subject line in message
use constant cMailserver  => 'localhost';                             
+   # mailserver to use
use constant cMailtext    => "New voting booth is up at the monastery.
+"; # what to send in the body

use constant cSite        => "http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node=p
+ast%20polls&displaytype=raw";

{
   $LWP::Simple::FULL_LWP = 1;

   my $newpage = get (cSite) or die "Eeek!  Can't get page from site";

   read DATA, my $oldpage, -s DATA;

   if (!defined ($oldpage) || $oldpage ne $newpage)
   {
      MIME::Lite->send ('smtp', cMailserver, Timeout=>60);

      my $msg = MIME::Lite->new (From     => cMailfrom,
                                 To       => cMailto,
                                 Subject  => cMailsubject,
                                 Type     => 'TEXT',
                                 Encoding => '7bit',
                                 Data     => cMailtext) or die "Eeek! 
+ MIME::Lite->new failed";

      $msg->send or die "Eeek!  MIME::Lite->send failed.";

      #
      #  Only update if we actually sent the message
      #
      open SELF, "+< $0" or die "Eeek!  Can't open $0: $!";

      {
         local $/ = join '', $/, '__DATA__';
         <SELF>;
      }

      (truncate SELF, tell SELF) || die "Eeek!  Truncate failed: $!";
      print SELF $/, $newpage;

      close SELF;
   }
}

__DATA__
[download]

Old version, prior to dkubbs suggestions

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

#
#  READ THE SECURITY NOTICE BELOW!
#
#  This is for people that run around life with the all important voti
+ng nodelet turned off.
#  Don't you hate suddenly seeing what appears to be an off-topic thre
+ad, only to realize
#  that a new voting booth has been put up, and you're not in on the a
+ction?
#
#  Well, thanks to Twitching Monk Software's latest release, you can b
+e a member of the
#  trendy 'Vote Early, Vote Often' crowd.  Simply tune the parameters 
+below for your
#  mail server and account, toss it in a cron job, and voting glory wi
+ll be yours (and
#  remember... All your vote are belong to us!)
#
#  This script gets the past polls page, compares it to the previous p
+age stored in the
#  __DATA__ section of the script.  If they're different, an email is 
+sent, and if the email
#  succeeds, the script rewrites itself.  I highly recommended that th
+is be set to '600'
#  permission set.
#
#  I'd probably recommend that a copy of the script be made, once you'
+ve set the parameters,
#  just in case it manages to corrupt itself somehow.  It's not likely
+, but anything is
#  possible with a TMS release.  If you felt really tricky, when the s
+cript is first run
#  with nothing after the data section, it would get the length of the
+ script, and write
#  that as part of the data section.  Then, after it stripped off the 
+old __DATA__, it would
#  perform a check to see if it's still the same length as what it was
+, and abort if not.
#
#  SECURITY NOTICE:  Set this script to 600 permission.  You don't wan
+t other people re-
#                    writing it for you, with something far nastier th
+an checking for a
#                    new voting nodelet.  Like, oh say, posting DiscoS
+tu quality articles
#                    under your user ID...  Or erasing all your tetris
+ high scores.
#
#  Requires the following modules:
#    LWP::Simple
#    MIME::Lite
#
#  Copyright 2000,2001(c) J.C.Wren   jcwren@jcwren.com
#  A production of Twitching Monk Software
#  No rights reserved, use as you see fit.  I'd like to know about it,
+ though, just for kicks.
#

use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use MIME::Lite;

#
#  Tune these to your requirements
#
use constant cMailto      => '"A. User Name" <pmuser@mysite.com>';    
+   # who the mail goes to
use constant cMailfrom    => '"A. User Name" <pmuser@mysite.com>';    
+   # from is the same as to, for me
use constant cMailsubject => 'Perlmonks.org New Voting Booth Up!';    
+   # subject line in message
use constant cMailserver  => 'localhost';                             
+   # mailserver to use
use constant cMailtext    => "New voting booth is up at the monastery.
+"; # what to send in the body

use constant cSite        => "http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node=p
+ast%20polls&displaytype=raw";

{
   $LWP::Simple::FULL_LWP = 1;

   my $newpage = get (cSite) or die "Eeek!  Can't get page from site";

   my $oldpage = <DATA>;

   if (!defined ($oldpage) || $oldpage ne $newpage)
   {
      MIME::Lite->send ('smtp', cMailserver, Timeout=>60);

      my $msg = MIME::Lite->new (From     => cMailfrom,
                                 To       => cMailto,
                                 Subject  => cMailsubject,
                                 Type     => 'TEXT',
                                 Encoding => '7bit',
                                 Data     => cMailtext) or die "Eeek! 
+ MIME::Lite->new failed";

      $msg->send or die "Eeek!  MIME::Lite->send failed.";

      #
      #  Only update if we actually sent the message
      #
      {
         local $/ = undef;

         open (FH, "<$0") or die "Eeek!  Can't open myself for reading
+!";
         my $self = <FH>;
         close (FH);

         $self =~ s/(^__DATA__$).*/$1/m;
         $self .= $newpage;

         open (FH, ">$0") or die "Eeek!  Can't open myself for writing
+!";
         print FH $self;
         close (FH);
      }
   }
}

__DATA__
[download]