Checks Gmail and shows a Growl notification (using growlnotify) with unread count.

check_gmail.rb

#! /usr/bin/env ruby

begin
  response = %x{ curl -u username:password --silent "https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom" }
  fullcount = response.match(/<fullcount>(\d+)<\/fullcount>/)[1].to_i
  message = fullcount > 0 ? fullcount.to_s + " new message(s)." : "No new messages."
rescue
  message = "There was an error."
ensure
  %x{ growlnotify "#{message}" -m "" --image "icon.png" }
end