This script watches the status of your API request limit on Twitter.

twitter_api_status.rb

require 'open-uri'
require 'json'

User = 'somebody'
Pass = 's3kr3tl0l'

cache = {}

while true
  
  [[User, Pass], nil].each do |auth|
    status = JSON.parse(open('http://twitter.com/account/rate_limit_status.json', :http_basic_authentication => auth).read)
    
    unless cache[auth] && cache[auth] == status['remaining_hits']
      eta = status['reset_time_in_seconds'] - Time.now.to_i
      puts "#{auth ? 'User' : 'IP'}:\t#{status['remaining_hits']} (reset: #{eta / 60}m #{eta % 60}s)"
      cache[auth] = status['remaining_hits']
    end
  end
  
  sleep 1
end