Checks a twitter account's most recent tweet. Sends an email if new.

twitmail.py

#!/usr/bin/python

import os
import subprocess as sub
import urllib2
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup

TWITTERUSER = cupcakory # if you want to check twitter.com/cupcakory for updates
EMAILADDR = gabe@example.com

# get the most recent tweet from Twitter
page = urllib2.urlopen("http://twitter.com/" + TWITTERUSER)
soup = BeautifulSoup(page)
contentTags = soup.findAll('span', attrs={"class" : "entry-content"})
twitterTweet = contentTags[0].string

# Have we seen that Tweet before, and saved it?
newTweet = False
filename = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'recentest.txt')
try:
    f = open(filename, 'r')
    fileTweet = f.read();
    if fileTweet != twitterTweet:
        newTweet = True
    f.close()
except IOError:
    newTweet = True # file not present, make new file with current tweet

# if new, overwrite old file with new tweet and send email alert
if newTweet:
    with open(filename, 'w') as f:
        f.write(twitterTweet)

    # prepare mail messages:
    mailMsg = "to:" + EMAILADDR + "\n"
    mailMsg += "subject:Update from " + TWITTERUSER + "\n\n"
    mailMsg += twitterTweet
    mailMsg += "\n"

    # send via sendmail subprocess
    p = sub.Popen(['/usr/sbin/sendmail -t'], shell=True, stdin=sub.PIPE)
    p.communicate(input=mailMsg)

Full disclosure: Only as I was pasting it into this gist box did I pull the TWITTERUSER and EMAILADDR out and up to the top -- haven't tested it. It works if you just hardcode that info into the script, though, as I did.

Brief walkthrough here: http://www.gabedurazo.com/blog/?p=39