Being a Linux Magazine subscriber this is actually an old hat as I had the fortune of reading the article when it came out. Nevertheless it's still an extremely neat trick to be able to send automatic status updates, log output and system messages to a microblogging service from where you can monitor it anywhere in the world on an infinite number of device, on smart phones, via rss feeds etc.
Instead of trying to rehash it I just point you straight to the source.
Great stuff. I've never had an account with these services before simply
because I'm not a social networking kind of guy, but a fellow Slackware
user recently got me into Google+ (you know who you are), and I
remembered the Perl trick. Currently in the middle of a project to try this just for fun.
Published as "Twittering for Geeks",
Perl Script Sends Log Messages to Twitter, Linux Magazine 11/2009, by Michael Schilli.
More such Perl gems here on Perlmeister.com if you liked it.